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BV  210  .P4  1921 
Pell,  Edward  Leigh,  1861- 
What  did  Jesus  really  teach 
about  prayer? 


what  Did  Jesus  Really 
Teach    About    Prayer? 


WORKS      B  r 
Edward  Leigh  Pell 

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What  Did  Jesus  Really 
Teach  About  Prayer? 


By         y: 
EDWARD  LEIGH  PELL 

Author  of  "  What  Did  Jesus  Really  Teach  About  Warf 
**Our  Troublesome  Religious  Questions^  etc. 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.   Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1 921,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


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Preface 

SOMEWHERE  in  these  pages  I  have  said 
that  when  the  average  Christian  mother 
takes  up  the  task  of  teaching  her  children 
the  elements  of  religion,  she  does  not  undertake 
to  find  out  what  Jesus  taught:  she  only  recalls 
what  she  was  taught  in  her  own  childhood  and 
teaches  that.  That  was  what  her  mother  did  be- 
fore her,  and  her  mother's  mother,  and  so  on  all 
the  way  back  to  her  heathen  forebears.  As  a  con- 
sequence the  religious  faith  which  most  of  us  ac- 
quire in  our  childhood,  instead  of  being  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  is  a  patchwork  in  which  the  teachings 
of  Jesus  are  often  lost  in  a  maze  of  misinterpreta- 
tions of  His  teachings,  and  pagan  ideas  which  we 
inherited  from  our  far-away  ancestors.  In  the 
simple  days  of  our  fathers  these  early  misteachings 
did  little  harm,  for  the  reason  that  the  average  man 
went  through  life  without  coming  into  a  light  that 
■would  put  them  to  the  test.  But  to-day  it  is  dif- 
ferent. To-day  our  boys  and  girls  are  hardly  out 
of  sight  of  home  before  the  fierce  light  of  modern 
intelligence  begins  to  beat  down  pitilessly  upon  all 
the  precious  faiths  and  fables  of  their  childhood, 
and  they  soon  discover  that  their  religious  faith 
will  not  bear  inspection.  Moreover,  this  is  an 
age  of  hurry  as  well  as  of  light,  and  when  our 
young  people  discover  that  some  of  their  religious 

5 


6  Preface 

ideas  are  unscientific  and  will  not  work,  they  don't 
stop  to  think;  they  jump  to  the  conclusion  that 
Christianity  is  unscientific  and  won't  work,  and 
with  a  gesture  of  finality,  turn  their  backs  upon 
the  religion  of  their  fathers. 

We  have  been  blaming  the  college  for  un- 
settling the  faith  of  our  young  people,  and  no 
doubt  some  colleges  deserve  all  the  harsh  things 
we  have  said  about  them;  but  it  is  time  we  were 
playing  fair;  it  is  time  we  were  demanding  of 
ourselves  why  we  persist  in  sending  our  young 
people  to  college  with  a  faith  that  will  not  bear  the 
light.  Modern  science  has  indeed  played  havoc 
with  our  misinterpretations  of  Jesus  and  our  pagan 
ideas,  but  it  has  yet  to  disturb  a  single  teaching  of 
Jesus.  Why  have  we  not  taught  them  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus? 

More  than  one  great  secular  paper  has  recently 
expressed  the  opinion  that  what  this  country  needs 
most  of  all  is  an  old-time  revival  of  religion.  No 
doubt  this  is  true,  but  what  this  country  needs  first 
of  all,  is  a  revival  of  faith  that  will  make  a  real 
revival  of  religion  possible.  And  certainly,  if  our 
faith  is  to  be  revived,  we  must  look  after  the  foun- 
dations of  faith  upon  which  we  are  trying  to 
stand.  We  must  get  rid  of  the  stones  that  are 
crumbling — our  misinterpretations  of  Jesus  and 
our  pagan  ideas — and  we  must  put  in  their  place 
the  everlasting  granite  truths  of  Jesus. 

****** 


Preface  7 

In  this  book  I  have  tried  to  answer  what  to  my 
mind  is  one  of  the  most  pressing  rehgious  ques- 
tions of  the  present  moment.  The  greatest  ob- 
stacle to  the  progress  of  religion  in  this  age  is  the 
weakness  of  our  appeal  for  Christ.  Unquestion- 
ably this  weakness  is  due  to  our  unsatisfactory  re- 
ligious experience.  And  the  religious  experience 
of  the  average  Christian  nowadays  is  his  experi- 
ence with  prayer,  which,  as  everybody  knows,  is 
pathetic. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  foundations  of  faith.  Let 
me  change  my  figure  for  a  moment  to  the  chain  of 
faith.  A  chain  is  no  stronger  than  its  weakest 
link.  The  weakest  link  in  our  modern  chain  of 
faith  is  prayer.  This  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
it  contains  more  pagan  ideas — more  clay — mixed 
with  the  pure  gold  of  Christian  belief  than  is  to 
be  found  in  any  other  link. 

As  I  have  tried  to  show  in  this  volume,  when  a 
man's  religious  faith  begins  to  break  down  it  usu- 
ally begins  at  this  point.  This  is  especially  notice- 
able at  college,  where  most  of  our  breakdowns  of 
faith  begin.  If  John  goes  to  college  with  a  strong 
link  of  prayer — if  his  conception  of  prayer  is 
Christian  and  has  the  support  of  his  own  experi- 
ence (instead  of  being  largely  pagan,  in  which 
case  his  own  experience  gives  it  the  lie) — if  he  can 
say  that  his  experience  with  prayer  has  proved 
that  it  is  what  his  mother  claimed  for  it — ^his  chain 
of  faith  is  likely  to  hold  together,  no  matter  what 


8  Preface 

assaults  may  be  made  upon  it.  But  if,  when  the 
fierce  Hght  of  college  begins  to  beat  pitilessly  upon 
it,  he  discovers  that  his  link  of  prayer  and  his  ex- 
perience with  prayer  contradict  each  other,  all  that 
the  enemy  of  his  faith  will  need  to  do  will  be  to 
give  that  link  one  short,  sharp  blow  with  his  little 
hammer.  Before  sunset  his  poor  broken  chain  will 
go  to  the  scrap-heap. 

To  every  one  who  has  studied  the  present  appal- 
ling drift  away  from  religion,  it  is  plain  that  if 
we  are  going  to  save  the  faith  of  humanity  in  God 
we  must  save  its  faith  in  a  prayer-answering  God. 
And  to  those  who  have  studied  the  present  popular 
conception  of  prayer,  it  is  just  as  plain  that  if  we 
are  going  to  save  the  faith  of  men  in  a  prayer- 
answering  God  we  have  got  to  remove  from  the 
present  popular  chain  of  faith  this  worthless,  inco- 
hesive  mixture  of  Christian  and  pagan  ideas,  and 
put  in  its  place  the  pure  gold  of  Christ's  own  teach- 
ing about  prayer.  First  of  all  we  must  bravely 
face  the  bitter  fact  that  prayer  as  it  is  popularly 
understood  is  a  failure.  And  having  done  this  we 
must  go  further  and  show  that  it  is  a  failure,  not 
because  of  the  Christianity  that  is  in  it,  but  be- 
cause of  the  paganism  that  is  in  it.  And  then  we 
must  make  clear  the  distinction  between  pagan 
prayer,  as  it  is  so  often  practiced  among  Christians, 
and  Christian  prayer. 

Unquestionably  pagan  prayer  is  a  failure.  It 
rests  upon  nothing  but  credulity.     It  violates  our 


Preface  9 

reason  and  our  intelligence.  It  ignores  the  facts 
of  science  and  of  human  experience.  It  ignores 
the  nature  of  God.  It  even  tries  to  make  God  re- 
verse Himself.  But  Christian  prayer,  as  I  have 
attempted  to  show  in  these  pages,  is  the  very  op- 
posite of  pagan  prayer.  Christian  prayer  appeals 
to  our  reason  and  our  intelligence.  It  agrees  with 
the  facts  of  science  and  of  human  experience.  It  is 
not  an  effort  to  reverse  God  to  bring  Him  in  line 
with  our  own  will;  it  is  an  effort  to  reverse  our- 
selves to  bring  us  in  line  with  His  will. 

And  it  has  never  failed.  So  long  as  men  looked 
upon  God  as  an  irresponsible  autocrat  from  whom 
they  might  get  what  they  wanted  by  hook  or  crook, 
by  begging  or  bribing  or  teasing,  prayer  was  a 
failure.  But  ever  since  Jesus  began  to  turn  men 
from  their  pagan  ways  and  to  show  them  how  to 
go  and  unbosom  themselves  to  the  Father,  prayer 
has  been  a  success.  It  is  the  greatest  success  there 
is  in  the  world  to-day. 

E.  L.  P. 

Richmond,  Va. 


Contents 

I. 

The    Present    Pathetic   Attitude 
Toward  Prayer    . 

13 

II. 

Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down 

20 

III. 

Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer 

34 

IV. 

Our    Misinterpretations    of    the 
Master 

50 

V. 

WhatTrayer  Meant  to  Jesus  r 

70. 

VI. 

The    Grounds    Upon  Which   Jesus 
Rested  Prayer     . 

83 

VII. 

Harmony  With  God 

94 

VIII. 

Was  Jesus  Unscientific  ?  . 

lOI 

IX. 

How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer  ?      . 

109 

X. 

Asking  In  His  Name 

125 

XL 

The  Master's  Instructions  to  Those 
Who  Would  Pray 

133 

XII. 

Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer 

145 

XIII. 

Prayers  God  Will  Answer 

160 

XIV. 

Praying  to  Be  Healed      . 

171 

XV. 

Praying  for  Others  .        .        .        . 

186 

XVI. 

What  Prayer  Does  for  Us 

194 

XVII. 

One  Word  That  Settles  All  . 

199 

II 


THE  PRESENT  PATHETIC  ATTITUDE 
TOWARD  PRAYER 


IT  is  interesting  to  know  what  people  are  think- 
ing. This  I  imagine  is  the  reason  why  we 
read  the  "  Voice  of  the  People  "  column  in 
the  morning  paper.  It  is  hardly  conceivable  that 
one  would  dip  into  that  unappetizing  dish  every 
day  in  the  year  for  the  chance  of  finding  a  choice 
morsel,  though  it  cannot  be  denied  that  several 
particularly  choice  morsels  have  been  found  in  it ; 
but  experience  has  taught  us  that  if  one  has  the 
perseverance  to  read  it  regularly  and  thoroughly, 
omitting  nothing — not  even  its  innocuous  con- 
troversies, with  their  bald  eccentricities  and  futile 
explosions  of  temper — one  may  come  at  last  to  a 
familiarity  with  the  popular  mind  such  as  is  rarely 
acquired  from  any  other  form  of  exercise.  In- 
deed I  know  of  nothing  comparable  to  it  unless  it 
is  that  rarest  privilege  of  the  enthusiastic  student 
of  the  human  species — the  privilege  of  lunching  in 
a  quiet  corner  of  a  cafe  with  a  talkative  stranger 
— a  different  but  always  talkative  stranger — every 
day  in  the  year. 

13 


14    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

Several  months  ago  the  leading  morning  paper 
in  our  town,  at  the  solicitation  of  an  anxious 
reader,  opened  its  columns  to  a  free-for-all  discus- 
sion of  the  question  whether  God  really  answers 
prayer  or  not.  Instantly  a  score  or  more  of  zealous 
champions  sprang  into  the  arena,  and  before  the 
end  of  the  week  the  town  found  itself  warming 
up  under  an  old-fashioned  religious  controversy, 
such  as  our  fathers  were  accustomed  to  amuse 
themselves  with  before  the  more  strenuous  but  less 
joyful  days  of  baseball.  It  was  a  promising  fight 
and  hopes  of  victory  ran  high  on  both  sides;  but  it 
went  on  and  on  until  it  wore  itself  out,  and  when 
it  ended  it  was  just  where  it  was  when  it  began. 
Nobody  had  won,  nobody  had  lost,  nobody  had 
even  made  a  hit. 

One  of  the  puzzling  questions  of  this  life  is  the 
readiness  with  which  intelligent  people  allow  them- 
selves to  be  drawn  into  a  contest  where  they  must 
fight  with  weapons  which,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
cannot  possibly  make  contact  with  the  things  they 
are  going  against.  That  is  the  situation  whenever 
Christians  and  unbelievers  come  together  to  argue 
a  matter  that  has  to  do  with  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
The  unbeliever — usually  a  materialist — comes  to  at- 
tack a  thing  of  the  spirit  with  material  weapons, 
while  the  Christian  comes  to  ward  off  his  material 
blows  with  a  spiritual  affirmation.  I  cannot  im- 
agine what  it  is  that  leads  us  into  such  folly  unless 
it  is  a  survival  of  the  impulse  which  led  our  pagan 


Pathetic  Attitude  Toward  Prayer         15 

ancestors  to  arm  themselves  with  sticks  and  stones 
before  passing  a  graveyard  at  night.  Our  con- 
troversy over  prayer  was  interesting  in  many  ways, 
but  as  a  fight  it  was  fooHsh.  It  could  not  have 
been  more  foolish  if  one  side  had  advanced  against 
prayer  with  a  darning  needle  and  the  other  side 
had  undertaken  to  parry  the  blow  with  an  article 
of  faith.  That  indeed  was  about  what  was  done. 
Neither  side  seemed  to  remember  that  all  the 
methods  of  proving  things  which  we  poor  humans 
have  invented  were  designed  for  the  sphere  of 
matter;  and  that  one  can  no  more  use  them  to 
prove  a  thing  in  the  sphere  of  spirit  than  one  can 
use  a  hat-pin  to  prove  the  presence  of  a  thought 
in  a  human  brain. 

If  a  burglar  should  attempt  to  shoot  me,  and  I 
should  cry  to  God  for  help,  and  a  thunderbolt  from 
a  clear  sky  should  strike  him  dead  on  the  spot,  that 
would  not  prove  that  God  answers  prayer.  I  might 
call  it  a  proof,  but  the  materialist  would  call  it  a 
coincidence,  and  I  could  no  more  prove  that  it  was 
not  a  coincidence  than  he  could  prove  that  it  was. 
No  number  of  material  facts  can  absolutely  prove 
anything  in  which  an  immeasurable  quantity  is  in- 
volved, and  in  the  matter  of  prayer  the  immeasur- 
able realm  of  spirit  is  involved. 

But  does  not  this  leave  the  whole  matter  of 
prayer  in  doubt  ?  No ;  no  more  than  it  leaves  any- 
thing else  that  is  of  the  spirit  in  doubt.  Love  is  a 
thing  of  the  spirit,  and  if  I  should  try  a  thousand 


l6     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

years  to  prove  that  my  mother  loves  me  I  could  not 
do  it.  But  that  would  not  leave  the  matter  in 
doubt:  I  would  know  that  my  mother  loves  me  all 
the  same. 

II 

But  while  our  controversy  as  such  was  a  failure, 
as  a  revelation  of  the  mind  of  the  community  on 
the  points  at  issue  it  was  a  notable  success.  It  told 
us  in  unmistakable  terms  what  people — all  sorts  of 
people — are  thinking  when  they  are  thinking  about 
prayer.  And  it  told  us  some  things  which  many  of 
us  were  not  prepared  to  learn. 

Some  of  these  were  amazing.  For  example, 
the  discussion  was  no  sooner  under  way  than 
it  became  evident  that  most  of  the  disputants 
were  labouring  under  a  misapprehension  as  to  the 
meaning  of  prayer.  Many  of  them  seemed  to  have 
prayer  defined  in  their  minds  largely  in  terms  of 
paganism.  While  their  phraseology  was  Christian 
their  ideas  did  not  essentially  differ  from  those  of 
civilized  pagans  of  two  thousand  years  ago.  Thi . 
was  as  true  of  the  scholarly  materialist,  who  aired 
his  views  with  the  confidence  of  authority,  as  it 
was  of  the  most  ignorant  believer,  whose  words 
sometimes  trembled  In  spite  of  his  faith.  Neither 
seemed  to  think  that  it  was  important  to  inquire 
whether  the  ideas  they  were  contending  over  were 
Christian  or  pagan.  They  were  no  more  concerned 
on  that  point  than  they  would  have  been  if  they 


Pathetic  Attitude  Toward  Prayer         17 

'  had  agreed  among  themselves  that  prayer  is  prayer 
^^and  must  stand  or  fall  on  its  merits  regardless  of 
whether  it  is  defined  by  a  Christian  or  a  pagan. 
And  in  nearly  every  case  the  idea  that  was  fought 
over  was  either  pagan  or  semi-pagan!  Believers 
fought  for  more  than  one  idea  that  was  purely 
pagan,  and  whenever  a  materialist  turned  loose  his 
shafts  of  sarcasm  upon  what  he  supposed  to  be  a 
teaching  of  Christ,  it  almost  invariably  proved  to 
be  an  idea  which  Christ  Himself  had  opposed,' 

III 

Another  significant  fact  which  came  out  in  the 
course  of  the  controversy  was  that  the  pagan  ideas 

Vhich  were  fought  over  owe  much  of  their  strength 
and  persistence  to  the  support  which  they  have  re- 
ceived from  popular  misinterpretations  of  Christ's 
teachings.  This  I  shall  discuss  farther  on,  but  I 
mention  it  here  because  it  leads  to  a  still  more 
serious  fact,  and  one  with  which  we  are  imme- 

*'diately  concerned.  This  fact  (which  was  also  sug- 
gested by  the  controversy)  is  that  it  is  the  support 
which  our  popular  misinterpretations  of  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  have  given  to  our  inherited  pagan 
ideas  that  is  largely  responsible  for  the  present 
pathetic  attitude  of  the  average  Christian  toward 
prayer. 

I  presume  no  one  will  question  that  this  attitude 
is  pathetic.  Really  it  is  something  to  cry  over.  If 
there  is  anything  more  unsatisfactory  or  more  dis- 


l8     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

tressing  in  religious  experience  than  the  average 
Christian's  experience  as  a  praying  man  I  cannot 
imagine  what  it  is.  On  almost  every  question  that 
one  asks  about  prayer  to-day  the  average  believer 
is  in  a  hopeless  fog.  He  has  never  tried  to  build 
up  a  creed  on  the  subject  and  he  hardly  knows 
what  he  believes  or  what  he  ought  to  believe.  He 
says  he  believes  in  prayer — of  course  he  believes  in 
prayer, — but  if  you  question  him  as  to  the  founda- 
tions of  his  belief  he  will  probably  say  that  he  has 
none  to  speak  of ;  he  believes  in  it  mainly  because  he 
feels  that  he  ought  to  believe  in  it.  If  you  go  fur- 
ther and  ask  for  his  expejience  as  a  praying  man 
he  will  hesitate  and  cough ;  it  is  an  unpleasant  sub- 
ject and  he  would  rather  not  go  into  it.  Or,  if  you 
press  him,  he  will  probably  say  that  there  is  nothing 
to  say  except  that  he  must  confess  he  has  never 
found  anything  in  it.  He  dislikes  to  admit  it, 
but  if  he  must  judge  from  his  own  experi- 
ence, he  cannot  see  how  anything  can  result 
from  it.  Really  it  does  not  seem  worth  while. 
And  then  he  will  grow  confidential  and  tell 
you  in  a  pitiful  way  about  his  first-born  son, 
and  about  how  earnestly  he  prayed  for  him 
when  he  was  ill,  and  how  the  boy  seemed  to 
grow  better  and  better  and  then  one  day  suddenly 
became  worse  and  died.  And  he  will  tell  you  how 
sorely  that  terrible  experience  tried  his  faith.  He 
will  not  say  that  it  destroyed  his  faith,  but  he  will 
admit  that  ever  since  that  day  he  has  hardly  known 


Pathetic  Attitude  Toward  Prayer         19 

just  what  to  beUeve.  And  then  he  will  go  back  to 
that  terrible  experience  and  tell  you  about  his  des- 
perate efforts  to  persuade  God  to  save  his  boy ;  how 
he  tried  to  bargain  with  Him ;  how  he  told  Him  that 
if  He  would  not  let  his  boy  die  he  would  be  a  better 
man  and  have  family  prayers  and  be  more  liberal 
to  the  church  and  try  to  make  his  wife  and  children 
happy,  and  all  that,  and  how  it  was  all  to  no  pur- 
pose. "  I  still  believe  in  prayer,''  he  will  add,  "  at 
least  I  suppose  I  do,  but  I  just  haven't  had  any 
success  in  that  line.  Perhaps  it's  because  I've  never 
quite  got  the  hang  of  it." 


11 

WHERE  FAITH  BEGINS  TO  BREAK  DOWN 


I  HAVE  said  that  the  present  attitude  of  the 
average  Christian  toward  prayer  is  something 
to  cry  over.  But  it  is  more  than  that:  it  is 
something  to  think  over ;  and  that  is  what  we  want 
to  do  just  now. 

Let  us  begin  with  a  tragedy — the  greatest 
tragedy  of  modern  times.  I  do  not  mean  the 
World  War:  I  mean  the  almost  world-wide  spir- 
itual collapse  which  preceded  it.  I  know  it  is  still 
difficult  to  believe  that  there  ever  was  a  greater 
tragedy  than  the  World  War,  but  the  time  will  come 
when  we  shall  see  that  the  awful  horror  which  over- 
whelmed the  fair  fields  of  Flanders  and  France, 
appalling  as  it  was,  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
terrible  calamity  which  a  little  while  before  had 
fallen  upon  the  land  of  the  spirit  in  almost  every 
part  of  Christendom.  The  monster  military  ma- 
chine which  Germany  sent  forth  to  mow  down  the 
nations  was  undoubtedly  the  last  word  in  human 
frightfulness,  but  it  was  not  the  last  word  in  hu- 
man destructiveness.  That  word  was  spoken  when 
the  German  universities  a  generation  before  the 
war  sent  out  their  terrible  rationalistic  Juggernaut 

20 


Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down      21 

to  destroy  the  armies  of  the  spirit,  the  only  forces 
that  seriously  stood  in  the  way  of  the  Prussian 
militaristic  ambition.  That  monster,  be  it  remem- 
bered, was  never  turned  back.  It  was  never  even 
halted.  It  went  on  its  deadly  way  as  ruthlessly  and 
as  inevitably  as  fate,  and  when  the  World  War 
came  it  had  not  only  nearly  completed  the  intellec- 
tual and  spiritual  conquest  of  Europe,  but  it  had 
successfully  bombarded  many  of  the  greatest  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  fortresses  of  America. 

After  all,  a  nation  is  only  a  group  of  individuals, 
and  the  real  value  of  history  lies  not  in  what  it 
tells  us  concerning  such  artificial  divisions  of  the 
race  as  national  governments,  but  in  the  light  which 
it  sheds  upon  humanity  and  especially  upon  these 
particular  units  of  humanity  which  we  call  our- 
selves; and  it  is  high  time  we  were  applying  the 
lessons  of  the  war  to  our  own  souls.  We  need  to 
realize  that  when  we  say,  as  the  war  has  taught  us 
to  say,  that  the  greatest  tragedy  that  can  befall  a 
nation  is  the  destruction  of  its  religious  founda- 
tions, we  really  mean  the  religious  foundations  of 
a  people;  and  we  need  to  remember  that  this  les- 
son is  intended  not  for  the  artificial  organization 
which  we  call  our  government  (a  thing  we  seem 
to  value  nowadays  mainly  as  a  convenient  scape- 
goat for  our  sins  as  a  people),  but  for  our  people 
as  a  people,  and  for  the  particular  individuals  who 
compose  this  particular  people.  For  one  thing  we 
need  to  realize  that  the  terrible  spiritual  cataclysm 


22     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

which  overtook  the  nations  of  continental  Europe 
before  the  war,  as  a  result  of  their  long  exposure 
to  rationalistic  and  materialistic  teaching,  does  not 
materially  differ  from  the  cataclysm  which  is  to- 
day overtaking  multitudes  of  our  own  people  here 
in  America  who  have  been  exposed  to  like  deadly 
influences. 

II 

One  of  the  commonest  and  most  pathetic  sights 
one  passes  on  the  roadside  of  life  nowadays  is  a 
wreck  of  religious  faith.  Even  more  common  and 
perhaps  more  pathetic  are  the  miserable  half- 
wrecks  which  one  meets  along  the  road  itself.  One 
can  hardly  sit  down  to  rest  that  some  poor  trem- 
bling creature  does  not  stop  and  thrust  his  nose  in 
your  face  and  in  a  hoarse  whisper  demand  to  know 
what's  the  matter  with  Christianity  and  what  we 
are  all  coming  to  anyway.  Or  perhaps  it  is  a  sad- 
faced  young  man  who  has  recently  lost  his  mother 
and  who  wants  to  know  if  science  has  really  left 
anything  of  Christianity  that  an  intelligent  man 
can  tie  to.  Or  a  sad-faced  old  man  who  in  a  qua- 
vering voice  asks  whether  you  think  there  is  any 
chance  for  the  old  ship.  Or  a  desolate-looking 
woman  in  black  just  returning  from  a  seance,  who 
is  anxious  for  your  opinion  as  to  whether  one  may 
hope  to  find  in  spiritualism  what  one  has  failed  to 
find  in  religion.  Or  perhaps  it  is  a  middle-aged 
man  of  heroic  build  whom  you  used  to  see  stand- 


Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down      23 

ing  like  a  bronze  statue  with  both  feet  firmly 
planted  upon  the  Rock  of  Ages,  and  whom  you 
saw  yesterday  standing,  not  upon  it  but  before  it, 
and  trying  to  summon  up  the  courage  to  venture 
the  weight  of  one  foot  upon  it.  You  remember 
how  he  would  reach  out  one  trembling  foot  and 
draw  it  back  and  then  the  other  and  draw  that  back. 
Or  perhaps  it  is  your  neighbour's  son  just  from 
college. 

That  is  the  worst  of  all.  How  often  you  have 
wished  from  the  bottom  of  your  heart  that  you 
could  go  to  sleep  and  forget  that  boy ! 

If  there  is  anything  in  our  modern  life  more 
depressing  than  this  appalling  drift  of  young  men 
and  women  away  from  religion  I  cannot  imagine 
what  it  is.  A  generation  ago  if  a  hundred  boys 
went  from  our  town  to  college  it  was  a  safe  guess 
that  at  least  ninety  would  come  back  with  the 
fundamentals  of  their  religious  faith  unimpaired. 
To-day  when  a  hundred  of  our  boys  go  to  college, 
unless  the  college  is  aggressively  Christian,  we  do 
not  expect  to  see  half  of  them  return  with  their 
religious  faith  unimpaired.  Not  a  few  will  come 
back  without  any  faith  at  all.  The  case  of  the 
college  girl  is  not  so  serious,  but  it  is  growing  more 
and  more  serious  every  day.  A  generation  ago, 
if  a  hundred  girls  went  off  to  school  a  hundred 
would  come  back  with  their  faith  intact;  to-day 
most  of  our  college  girls  come  home  with  a  re- 
ligious faith  of  some  sort,  but  in  not  a  few  cases 


24     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

it  is  in  such  sad  need  of  repair  that  they  are 
ashamed  to  let  their  mothers  see  it.  It  is  only  to 
the  distinctly  Christian  college — the  college  whose 
atmosphere  is  thoroughly  permeated  with  the 
teachings  and  spirit  of  Christ — that  we  can  to-day 
send  our  sons  or  daughters  with  any  assurance 
that  they  will  come  back  with  the  foundations  of 
their  faith  undisturbed. 

Ill 

It  is  human  to  take  things  for  granted.  It  is 
especially  human  to  assume  things  about  a  matter 
which  we  cannot  investigate  without  serious  dis- 
comfort to  ourselves.  And  we  have  been  very 
human  in  our  attitude  toward  our  present  religious 
situation.  Some  of  us  have  been  saying  that  this 
appalling  drift  of  our  young  people  away  from 
religion  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Christian  creed  is 
out  of  date.  Others  of  us  have  argued  that  Chris- 
tianity has  ceased  to  appeal  to  the  race  because  the 
needs  of  the  modern  man  are  different  from  the 
needs  of  the  man  of  the  past.  Still  others  of  us 
like  to  think  that  the  trouble  is  to  be  found  at  col- 
lege. What  is  easier  than  to  prove  that  it  is  practi- 
cally impossible  for  a  religious  faith  to  live  in  the 
materialistic  atmosphere  which  is  to  be  found 
wherever  science  has  been  given  the  exclusive  right 
of  way?  And  then  there  are  many  outside  of  the 
Christian  group — unbelievers  of  a  scientific  turn, 
men  who  would  not  be  supposed  to  take  anything 


Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down      25 

for  granted — who  tell  us  that  the  secret  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  our  boys  and  girls  discover 
when  they  go  to  college  that  Christianity  will  not 
bear  inspection  in  the  light  of  science. 

It  is  all  the  easier  to  assume  these  things  when 
one  has  fallen  into  our  modern  habit  of  studiously 
avoiding  disagreeable  facts.  A  shipwreck  of  faith 
is  a  disagreeable  fact  and  when  we  come  in  sight 
of  such  a  wreck  there  are  few  of  us  who  can  re- 
sist the  temptation  to  pass  by  on  the  other  side. 
Only  once  in  a  while  does  one  come  upon  a  man 
who  has  the  courage  to  ask  a  college  boy  who  has 
lost  his  faith  to  go  off  with  him  to  some  quiet  spot 
and  sit  down  and  tell  him  how  it  happened.  That 
sort  of  thing  is  not  to  the  modern  taste. 

Yet  when  one  does  succeed  in  commanding  one's 
will  to  so  unpleasant  a  task  one  learns  some  things 
that  are  well  worth  all  that  they  have  cost.  For 
one  thing  he  learns  that  college  boys  don't  give  up 
Christianity  because  the  creed  is  out  of  date.  Col- 
lege boys  are  not  interested  in  creeds.  They  may 
tell  you  that  the  Christian  creed  is  out  of  date,  but 
most  of  them  have  never  so  much  as  looked  at  the 
date  to  see  how  old  it  is.  Boys  don't  think  of 
creeds — not  even  when  they  speak  of  them. 

Again,  one  learns  that  boys  don't  give  up  their 
religious  faith  because  they  have  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  organized  Christianity  does  not  meet 
the  needs  of  the  modern  man.  Unbelievers  at  col- 
lege rarely  attempt  to  unsettle  a  boy's  faith  by  re- 


26     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

minding  him  of  the  deficiencies  of  organized  Chris- 
tianity. They  may  talk  about  these  things,  but 
they  don't  expect  to  unsettle  a  boy's  faith  by  talk- 
ing about  them. 

You  cannot  break  down  a  boy's  faith  by  arguing 
with  him  about  the  creed  or  the  Church.  The  fact 
is  you  cannot  break  down  his  faith  by  arguing  with 
him  on  any  subject.  A  college  boy  dearly  loves  to 
argue  and  if  you  face  him  with  nothing  but  argu- 
ments he  will  stand  by  his  religion  to  the  last. 
Arguments  alone,  instead  of  weakening  him  in  his 
position,  only  set  him  to  work  to  intrench  himself 
more  strongly  in  his  position. 

If  one  will  take  the  trouble  to  go  carefully  over 
an  actual  case  of  shipwreck  of  faith  one  will  find 
that  the  boy's  ship  did  not  go  to  pieces  on  any  of 
the  rocks  which  are  supposed  to  loom  up  so  fatally 
at  college.  The  arguments  of  history  and  the  dis- 
coveries of  science  which  a  boy  runs  against  in  his 
college  course  may  make  his  ship  easier  to  wreck 
later  on,  but  if  he  does  not  run  against  anything 
else  his  ship  is  likely  to  return  to  the  home  harbour 
at  the  end  of  his  four  years  in  a  fairly  seaworthy 
condition. 

The  trouble  comes  when  something  else  hap- 
pens. The  discovery  that  certain  Items  In  the  faith 
his  mother  taught  him  are  contrary  to  the  facts  of 
science  or  of  life,  disconcerting  as  it  may  be,  may 
not  alone  cause  any  serious  damage;  but  if  he  goes 
further — if  he  Is  led  to  compare  these  items  with 


Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down      27 

the  facts  of  his  ozvn  Hfe — with  his  own  rehgious 
experience — and  should  discover  that  his  own  ex- 
perience gives  them  the  lie,  he  will  suffer  a  shock 
that  may  send  his  ship  to  the  bottom.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  all  wrecks  of  faith  at  college 
occur  in  this  way,  but  it  is  the  usual  way.  The 
faith  of  one's  childhood  is  usually  strong  enough 
to  survive  many  a  hard  storm  and  many  a  fright- 
ful crash  among  the  rocks,  but  when  a  boy  stands 
face  to  face  with  the  cold  facts  of  his  own  re- 
ligious experience  and  suddenly  discovers  that  they 
give  the  lie  to  that  faith,  the  shock  is  more  than 
the  average  faith  can  stand. 

IV 
The  religious  experience  of  the  average  boy,  like 
that  of  the  average  man,  is  his  experience  with 
prayer.  The  religious  experience  of  a  highly  de- 
veloped Christian  covers  a  wide  field,  but  when 
the  average  man  sits  down  to  think  of  his  own 
experience  as  a  Christian,  he  thinks  of  his  failures 
in  prayer — of  how  often  in  the  most  critical  mo- 
ments of  life — moments  "  when  a  fellow  needs  a 
friend  '' — he  had  gone  to  God  in  prayer,  and  of 
how  in  spite  of  his  faith  and  earnestness  God  had 
paid  no  attention  to  his  cries.  And  when  a  boy 
who  has  made  a  failure  of  prayer  and  who  has 
come  into  the  cold  light  of  science  at  college  begins 
to  think  of  his  experience  as  a  praying  Christian, 
trouble  is  almost  sure  to  come.     For — to  change 


28     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

my  figure — faith  in  a  prayer-answering  God  is  the 
bottom  foundation  stone  of  the  average  man's  re- 
ligion, and  when  his  behef  in  prayer  crumbles 
everything  goes  with  it.  Or,  if  I  may  use  still 
another  figure,  prayer  is  the  weakest  link  in  the 
chain  of  faith  and  the  chain  will  hold  only  so  long 
as  the  prayer  link  holds.  If  John  goes  to  college 
with  a  satisfactory  experience  with  prayer,  he  is 
likely  to  come  back  with  his  chain  of  faith  intact. 
If  the  prayer  link  holds  the  rest  will  hold.  He  will 
have  his  troubles,  no  doubt,  and  he  will  probably 
have  to  give  up  some  ideas  which  his  mother 
taught  him  for  Christian  truths,  but  so  long  as  his 
faith  concerning  prayer  holds,  his  chain  of  faith, 
no  matter  how  severely  it  may  be  strained,  will 
never  break.  He  may  not  be  able  to  answer  every 
scoffing  Sophomore  who  gives  that  chain  a  vicious 
pull,  but  he  will  have  an  answer  for  every  doubt 
that  may  rise  in  his  own  soul.  He  will  say  to  his 
soul,  "  I  know  that  I  have  come  in  touch  with  God 
in  prayer,  and  that  settles  it." 

No  stone  that  the  enemy  may  hurl  against 
John's  chain  of  faith  can  break  it  if  he  is  conscious 
of  a  satisfactory  experience  on  that  one  point. 
But  on  the  other  hand  a  very  small  stone  will  break 
it  if  the  prayer  link  is  weak.  If  John  goes  to 
college  with  an  unsatisfactory  experience  as  a  pray- 
ing Christian  the  enemy  will  only  have  to  confuse 
him  with  a  dazzling  show  of  science  and  then 
drive  him  back  upon  that  experience.     The  mo- 


Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down      29 

ment  he  is  forced  to  ask  himself  what  he  can  point 
to  in  his  rehgious  experience  that  confirms  the 
truth  of  Christianity,  he  will  think  of  his  experi- 
ence with  prayer.  He  will  recall  how  his  mother 
taught  him  that  if  he  wanted  an3^hing  and  would 
ask  for  it  in  Jesus'  name  he  would  get  it,  and  how 
he  had  asked  and  asked  and  asked  and  nothing  had 
ever  come  of  it. 

And  then  he  will  throw  up  his  hands. 

Docs  this  mean  that  if  John's  faith  breaks  down 
at  college  it  will  be  because  of  his  discovery  that 
Christ's  teaching  about  prayer  does  not  accord 
with  the  facts  of  life?  No.  Nobody  has  ever 
made  such  a  discovery  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
nobody  ever  will.  John  may  discover  that  what 
he  was  taught  for  the  teachings  of  Christ  about 
prayer  does  not  accord  with  the  facts  of  life,  but 
that  is  another  matter.  Even  that  discovery,  as  I 
have  said,  is  not  likely  to  cause  his  faith  to  break 
down.  A  boy's  faith  will  hold  up  against  any- 
thing that  you  may  direct  against  it  so  long  as 
your  attack  is  not  personal.  If  John's  faith  breaks 
down  it  will  be  when  he  discovers  that  what  he 
has  been  taught  for  Christ's  teaching  about  prayer 
does  not  accord  with  the  facts  of  life  as  shown 
in  his  own  experience, 

V 
This  it  seems  to  me  is  the  main  secret  of  our 
present  distressing  religious  situation.     Unques- 


30     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

tionably  it  is  the  secret  of  a  large  part  of  the  pres- 
ent frightful  drift  of  our  young  people  away  from 
religion.  Most  of  our  boys  and  girls  who  turn 
their  backs  upon  religion  do  so  under  a  misappre- 
hension. They  think  they  have  ceased  to  believe 
in  Christianity;  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  have  only 
ceased  to  believe  in  some  things  which  their  good 
mothers,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world, 
have  taught  them  for  Christianity.  As  I  have  said 
elsewhere,'  when  the  average  Christian  mother 
takes  up  the  task  of  instructing  her  children  in 
religion,  she  does  not  undertake  to  find  out  what 
Jesus  actually  taught ;  she  only  recalls  what  she  was 
taught  in  her  own  childhood,  and  teaches  that. 
That  was  what  her  mother  did  before  her  and  her 
mother's  mother,  and  so  on  back  to  her  pagan 
ancestors.  This  means  of  course  that  the  average 
mother  teaches  not  only  what  she  has  inherited 
from  her  Christian  ancestors,  but  also  what  she 
has  inherited  from  her  pagan  ancestors  who  pre- 
ceded them.  And  this  means  that  the  religious 
faith  which  she  builds  up  in  the  minds  of  her  chil- 
dren is  likely  to  be  a  hopeless  tangle  of  Christian 
and  pagan  ideas,  the  general  effect  of  which  is 
more  pagan  than  Christian. 

It  is  this  fact,  together  with  the  fact  that  the  re- 
ligion of  the  average  man  rests  upon  his  faith  in  a 
prayer-answering   God,    that    makes    the    present 

*"  Bringing    Up    John,"    Fleming    H.    Revell    Company, 
N.  Y. 


Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down      31 

popular  attitude  toward  prayer  one  of  the  most 
pressing  religious  problems  of  our  time.  If  we 
are  going  to  save  the  religious  faith  of  the  race 
we  have  got  to  save  its  faith  in  a  prayer-answer- 
ing God,  and  if  we  are  going  to  save  its  faith 
in  a  prayer-answering  God  we  have  got  to  provide 
a  better  foundation  for  that  faith  to  rest  upon  in 
the  popular  mind  than  the  present  popular  con- 
ception of  prayer.  And  if  we  are  going  to  do  this 
there  is  no  time  to  lose,  for  the  present  foundation 
is  doomed.  Unquestionably  it  is  doomed.  The 
fierce  light  of  modern  intelligence  is  beating  piti- 
lessly upon  it  and  already  it  is  utterly  discredited 
in  every  intelligent  mind  that  has  taken  the  trouble 
to  examine  it.  Moreover  this  vague  suspicion  con- 
cerning prayer  which  has  always  lurked  in  the 
minds  of  the  multitude — this  feeling  that  there  is 
something  wrong  about  the  claims  that  have  been 
made  for  it  and  that  perhaps  our  religious  teachers 
have  not  been  altogether  frank  with  us — a  feeling 
which  the  average  Christian  of  the  past  hardly 
dared  to  admit  to  himself,  much  less  to  his  neigh- 
bour— this  vague  suspicion  has  been  steadily  grow- 
ing in  recent  years,  and  it  is  now  so  strong  that 
many  good  people  no  longer  hesitate  to  admit  it 
either  to  themselves  or  to  their  neighbours;  and 
this  has  added  enormously  to  the  present  peril. 

We  are  in  the  presence  of  a  situation  which  we 
can  no  longer  evade  and  we  might  as  well  face  it. 
And  we  might  as  well  begin  by  frankly  admitting 


32     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

that  we  have  not  been  altogether  frank  about  this 
matter.  The  Church  has  not  been  faithful  to  the 
faith.  It  has  known  for  ages  that  some  of  its 
most  precious  doctrines  were  resting  in  the  popular 
mind  upon  foundations  which  would  not  bear  in- 
spection, and  to  this  day  it  has  made  no  serious 
effort  to  improve  the  situation.  To  this  day  it  has 
stood  silently  by  while  its  people  have  been  build- 
ing for  themselves  foundations  for  their  faith  that 
will  not  bear  inspection  in  any  sort  of  light.  And 
often  it  has  unconsciously  aided  and  abetted  them 
in  their  task.  Only  the  other  day  I  heard  a  min- 
ister speak  of  prayer  in  terms  that  were  largely 
pagan.  He  knew  better,  of  course ;  it  was  only  a 
habit;  but  he  did  it.  The  fact  is,  in  this  matter 
of  prayer  the  attitude  of  the  pulpit  for  centuries 
has  been  that  of  the  mother  who  is  content  for 
her  child  to  learn  half-truths  while  he  is  young 
because  she  has  solemnly  promised  herself  to  teach 
him  the  whole  truth  when  he  is  older. 

Serious  as  it  is  there  is  nothing  discouraging 
about  the  present  situation  except  our  lack  of  cour- 
age to  face  it.  If  we  only  had  the  courage  to  face 
it  we  would  find  that  there  was  nothing  to  be 
afraid  of  and  that  would  be  half  the  battle. 
Prayer  is  not  what  it  has  been  usually  represented 
to  be,  but  we  shall  not  be  afraid  to  say  so  when  we 
are  able  to  add  that  It  Is  something  better.  Nor 
will  we  be  afraid  to  admit  that  the  foundation 
upon  which  prayer  rests  in  the  popular  mind  is 


Where  Faith  Begins  to  Break  Down      33 

crumbling,  when  we  can  point  to  a  far  older  foun- 
dation that  has  never  shown  a  sign  of  crumbling. 
And  why  should  we  hesitate  to  turn  the  declining 
faith  of  men  from  a  foundation  which,  in  spite  of 
the  goodly  Christian  stones  that  are  in  it,  threatens 
to  collapse  from  the  crumbling  of  the  worthless 
pagan  ideas  that  run  through  it,  when  we  have  at 
hand  a  foundation  which  was  built  by  the  Master 
Teacher  Himself,  the  only  foundation  of  prayer 
that  has  continued  through  the  ages  unshaken  by 
the  facts  of  human  experience  or  the  progress  of 
human  knowledge  ? 


^    in 

OUR  PAGAN  IDEAS  OF  PRAYER 

I 

WE  are  often  told — usually  by  some  smil- 
ingly reassuring  smatterer  in  psychol- 
ogy— that  children  do  not  have  doubts 
until  they  are  well  in  their  teens ;  but  I  am  sure  I 
began  to  have  my  serious  suspicions  about  prayer 
long  before  I  was  twelve.  The  truth  is,  psychol- 
ogy does  not  teach  that  children  do  not  have  doubts 
until  they  are  well  in  their  teens:  it  only  teaches 
that  the  tendency  to  doubt  does  not  appear  until 
then.  A  sixteen-year-old  boy  has  a  tendency  to 
doubt;  he  enjoys  doubting;  he  would  much  rather 
doubt  than  believe.  A  little  child  hates  to  doubt: 
it  gives  him  bad  "  feels  "  inside.  But  he  has  them, 
now  and  then,  all  the  same. 

And  I  had  mine.  I  was  not  proud  of  them — no 
normal  child  is  proud  of  his  doubts, — and  I  never 
dared  to  mention  them ;  but  I  had  them.  I  did  not 
doubt  God's  ability  or  willingness  to  answer 
prayer,  but  I  had  very  serious  doubts  about  some 
of  the  rules  that  had  been  given  me  to  pray  by.  I 
had  tried  them  and  they  did  not  work.  And  when 
a  thing  doesn't  work  even  a  little  child  must  doubt. 
I  don't  mean  that  I  ceased  to  believe:  a  child's  faith 

34 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  35 

does  not  cease;  it  only  suffers  lapses.  The  little 
girl  who  defiantly  announced  that  she  did  not  be- 
lieve In  God  any  more  because  she  had  prayed  and 
prayed  and  prayed  for  a  doll  and  had  said  "  for 
Jesus'  sake  "  and  hadn't  gotten  it,  did  not  really 
become  an  atheist,  but  for  a  long  time  whenever 
she  thought  of  that  doll  her  faith  suffered  at  least 
a  momentary  interruption.  And  my  own  similar 
experience  with  prayer  gave  my  faith  many  inter- 
ruptions. 

Frequent  lapses  of  faith  in  childhood  do  not  in- 
sure a  future  of  unbelief,  but  they  do  promise  a 
future  of  fear,  and  for  many  years  I  was  afraid  to 
face  the  truth  about  prayer.  I  kept  on  praying 
and  forcing  myself  to  say  that  I  believed,  but  I  did 
not  dare  to  spread  out  my  doctrine  of  prayer  in 
broad  daylight  before  other  people's  eyes  or  even 
my  own.  It  was  as  if  I  had  staked  everything  on 
the  genuineness  of  a  beautiful  necklace  of  pearls 
and  was  afraid  to  have  it  examined. 

I  have  mentioned  my  own  case  not  because  I 
think  it  is  unusual  but  because  I  am  sure  it  is  not. 
Thus  far  at  least  most  of  my  readers  will  recognize 
my  story  as  their  own.  Indeed  I  seriously  doubt 
whether  there  Is  a  thoughtful  Christian  of  the 
present  day  who  can  look  back  over  his  life  without 
recalling  a  time  when  there  came  into  his  mind  a 
suspicion  about  prayer  that  so  terrified  him  that  he 
was  never  able  to  think  of  It  afterwards  without 
shuddering.     But  happily  this  is  not  the  whole 


36     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

story.  Now  and  then  one  is  driven — sometimes 
by  a  sense  of  obligation  to  the  truth,  sometimes  by 
sheer  desperation — to  sit  down  and  look  the  facts 
squarely  in  the  face;  and  then  the  story  takes  a 
wonderful  turn.  I  shall  never  forget  the  sense  of 
relief  that  came  over  me  when,  after  many  years 
of  cowardly  evasion,  I  succeeded  in  getting  com- 
mand of  my  will  and  spread  out  before  my  vision 
in  broad  daylight  all  the  questions  which  my  doubt- 
ing heart  had  been  asking  about  prayer.  I  could 
hardly  believe  my  eyes.  It  was  plain  that  the  ideas 
of  prayer  which  I  had  been  afraid  to  examine  were 
false;  but  not  one  of  them  came  from  Jesus! 
They  were  all  either  misinterpretations  of  the  Mas- 
ter's teachings  or  survivals  of  paganism.  And  side 
by  side  with  these  false  ideas,  which  I  had  always 
taken  for  granted  were  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  lay 
the  actual  teachings  of  Jesus,  which  I  had  strangely 
overlooked,  not  one  of  which,  even  in  the  fierce 
light  to  which  I  had  exposed  them,  showed  a  single 
flaw. 

All  through  the  years  I  had  been  a  slave  to  fear 
for  nothing. 

II 

There  is  nothing  to  fear  from  an  honest  exami- 
nation of  one's  religious  beliefs,  but  one  might  as 
well  be  prepared  for  some  rude  shocks,  especially  if 
one  undertakes  to  separate  the  beliefs  which  he  has 
received  from  Christ  from  those  which  he  has  re- 
ceived from  pagan  or  semi-pagan  sources.     Per- 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  37  ^ 

haps  two-thirds  of  our  popular  conceptions  of 
death  and  the  hereafter  are  pagan  or  semi-pagan. 
Certainly  two-thirds  of  all  that  is  written  about 
death  is  more  pagan  than  Christian.  Some  of  the 
most  beautiful  tributes  to  the  dead  that  one  reads 
in  the  morning  paper  are  wholly  pagan.  Only  yes- 
terday I  read  a  charming  editorial  on  the  death  of 
a  prominent  citizen  which  might  well  have  been 
written  in  the  time  of  Plato.  The  prominent  citi- 
zen, who  in  his  lifetime  dearly  loved  to  browse 
among  old  books,  had  crossed  the  Styx  and  gone  to 
a  ghostly  land  where,  it  was  hoped,  he  might  con- 
tinue his  browsings  in  the  company  of  congenial 
shades — and  so  forth.  Of  course  the  editor  did 
not  mean  it,  for  he  is  both  a  Christian  and  a 
scholar;  but  the  pagan  habit  of  the  ages  held  his 
pen,  and  it  isn't  pleasant  to  try  to  break  away  from 
a  habit  and  write  an  editorial  at  the  same  time. 

The  atmosphere  in  the  average  Christian  home 
in  time  of  death  is  heavy  with  paganism.  If  the 
Master  should  come  in  with  His  cheerful  face  and 
the  happy  assurance  that  the  little  maid  is  "  not 
dead  but  sleepeth,"  all  the  mourners  would  laugh 
Him  to  scorn.  The  minister  who  comes  to  com- 
fort the  bereaved  must  spend  most  of  his  time  in 
desperate  efforts  to  rescue  them  from  the  heavy 
pall  of  pagan  ideas  that  is  suffocating  them.  Even 
the  pious  mother  has  forgotten  the  apostle's  admo- 
nition to  "  weep  not  as  those  who  have  no  hope," 
and  is  talking  pitifully  between  her  paroxysms  of 


38     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

grief  of  her  bud  of  promise  bUghted,  of  the  chilly 
flood  through  which  her  darling  passed,  and  of 
how  terrible  it  is  to  think  of  her  precious  babe  flit- 
ting about  among  the  shadows  like  a  formles's 
ghost.  And  there  is  the  father  (a  very  practical 
sort  of  Christian  in  his  store  down-town,  but  a 
most  unpractical  pagan  at  home  in  a  time  of  sor- 
row), talking  mournfully  of  the  tragic  end  of  little 
John,  and  the  dear  old  grandmother  repeating 
softly  to  herself  in  the  spirit  of  her  pagan  ancestors 
of  two  thousand  years  ago — 

**  When  death's  cold,  sullen  stream  across  us  rolls." 

Many  of  our  ideas  of  God  are  wholly  pagan. 
All  those  horrible  pictures  of  the  Deity  which 
nurses  use  to  frighten  little  children  into  being 
good  came  from  pagan  sources.  Even  the  horrible 
pictures  of  God  which  we  attribute  to  the  Old  Tes- 
tament owe  much  of  their  frightfulness  to  the  col- 
ouring which  they  have  received  from  the  inherited 
paganism  that  still  affects  our  vision.  Even  that 
time-honoured  teaching,  so  highly  esteemed  by 
mothers  of  a  certain  practical  type — the  teaching 
that  God  is  "  mad  "  with  little  children  when  they 
are  bad,  harks  back  to  the  distant  heathen  days 
when  the  gods  were  accustomed  to  lose  their  tem- 
per and  hurl  thunderbolts  at  one  another. 

Ill 

As  for  our  popular  modern  ideas  of  prayer, 
nearly  all  that  are  not  purely  pagan  are  more  or 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  39 

less  coloured  or  distorted  by  paganism.  Take  first 
of  all  our  mercenary  ideas.  The  question,  *'  Does 
it  pay  to  pray  ?  '*  as  usually  asked,  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  dim  dawn  of  history  when  man  in  the 
dimness  mistook  the  altar  for  a  bargain  counter. 
The  modern  Christian  who  never  thinks  of  prayer 
except  with  an  eye  to  gain,  does  his  religious  think- 
ing along  the  same  lines  as  his  pagan  ancestors  in 
the  days  when  men  brought  an  offering  of  small 
value  to  the  altar  as  a  gamble  on  the  chance  of  get- 
ting something  of  great  value  in  return.  No  doubt 
the  question  whether  it  pays  to  pray  was  often 
asked  in  those  days,  and  no  doubt  some  pious 
pagan  would  rise  to  tell  how  he  had  one  day  car- 
ried a  Iamb  to  the  altar — a  poor  little  thing  which 
he  didn't  expect  would  live — and  how  the  gods 
were  so  pleased  that  they  rescued  his  whole  flock 
from  a  pestilence. 

We  speak  of  commercialism  nowadays  as  if  it 
were  a  new  thing  under  the  sun ;  but  the  commer- 
cial age  must  have  begun  away  back  before  the 
dawn  of  history,  soon  after  the  heathen  began  to 
experiment  with  prayer.  At  first,  apparently,  they 
were  not  encouraged  by  the  hope  of  gain:  all  that 
one  tried  to  do  was  to  save  himself  from  the  wrath 
of  the  gods.  Later  somebody  who  had  succeeded, 
as  he  believed,  in  propitiating  the  gods  by  gifts,  de- 
veloped the  idea  that  If  he  could  induce  the  gods 
not  to  hurt  him  he  might  go  further  and  induce 
them  to  help  him.     And  so  he  undertook  not  only 


40     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

to  quiet  their  wrath  but  to  ingratiate  himself  into 
their  favour.  This  naturally  encouraged  his  greed 
and  he  soon  began  to  develop  shrewd  plans  for  get- 
ting the  best  of  the  bargain.  Sometimes  he  at- 
tempted to  cheat  the  gods  outright  and  get  some- 
thing for  nothing.  Sometimes  he  v^ould  be  liberal 
with  his  gifts  with  the  hope  that  they  would  be  still 
more  liberal  in  return.  By  and  by  he  developed 
the  idea  of  what  we  would  call  a  bargain  counter, 
and  undertook  to  see  how  much  he  could  get  for 
the  smallest  outlay. 

All  of  our  so-called  modern  commercial  ideas  of 
prayer  are  at  least  several  thousand  years  old,  and 
all  of  them  came  from  pagan  sources.  The  man 
who  says  his  prayers  at  night  because  he  is  afraid 
to  go  to  bed  without  saying  them  is  dominated  by  a 
pagan  idea  that  must  have  been  hoary  with  age  at 
the  dawn  of  civilization.  The  man  who  dedicates 
his  new  home  to  God,  not  out  of  love  for  God,  but 
because  he  hopes  that  it  will  keep  his  house  from 
burning  down,  is  to  that  extent  a  pagan.  So  is  the 
man  who  prays  every  day  at  his  store  because  an 
old  neighbour  of  his  prayed  every  day  at  his  store 
and  made  more  money  than  he  knew  what  to  do 
with. 

IV 

Let  us  bring  the  matter  closer  home.  A  man 
w^ho  has  never  had  anything  to  do  with  God, 
though  he  has  been  a  member  of  the  church  for 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  41 

twenty  years,  wakes  up  one  dark  morning  to  find 
himself  in  desperate  straits.  Let  us  say  that  his 
oldest  son,  his  heart's  idol,  is  hopelessly  ill  and  that 
the  doctors  have  said  that  the  end  may  be  expected 
any  moment.  In  his  extremity  he  thinks  of  God. 
He  really  knows  nothing  about  God  at  first  hand, 
but  he  knows  some  good  people  who  have  tried 
prayer  and  who  have  found  that  it  paid.  He  re- 
calls a  particularly  encouraging  instance  that  hap- 
pened in  his  own  neighbourhood.  A  good  man 
went  to  God  about  his  son  who  was  ill.  It  didn't 
seem  to  make  any  difference  at  first,  but  he  kept 
going  at  certain  hours  so  many  times  a  day,  and  at 
last  the  boy  took  a  sudden  turn  for  the  better  and 
got  well.  And  so  he  resolves  to  try  it.  He  re- 
solves to  try  it  on  his  boy  just  as  some  people  have 
tried  carrying  a  dried  potato  in  their  pockets  for 
rheumatism.  He  doesn't  really  see  how  it  can  do 
any  good,  but  he  decides  that  as  it  won't  do  any 
harm  and  won't  cost  anything,  there  is  no  reason 
why  he  shouldn't  make  the  experiment.  And  so 
he  begins  to  pray.  Rather  he  begins  to  say  prayers. 
He  does  not  know  God  and  really  does  not  care  to 
know  Him,  but  just  now  he  is  ready  for  anything. 
He  is  like  the  man.  who  has  never  had  anything  to 
do  with  Christian  Science  healers  and  would  not 
think  of  noticing  them  now,  only  he  is  in  such  des- 
perate straits  that  he  is  bound  to  do  something. 

He  begins  with  the  Idea  that  the  "  trick  "  con- 
sists in  approaching  God  in  a  certain  way  and  say- 


42     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

ing  certain  things  and  closing  with  the  simple  for- 
mula, "  For  Jesus'  sake,"  or  "  In  Jesus'  name ;  " 
and  he  begins  to  pray  accordingly.  His  son  does 
not  get  any  better  and  he  concludes  that  it  is  prob- 
ably because  he  has  not  prayed  long  enough  or 
often  enough  or  earnestly  enough,  and  so  he  begins 
to  pray  longer  and  oftener  and  more  earnestly. 
And  soon  his  son  begins  to  improve.  Now  he 
feels  that  he  has  learned  the  trick,  and  he  prays 
still  longer  and  still  oftener  and  still  more  ear- 
nestly, until  one  day  the  boy  suddenly  grows  worse. 
This  brings  him  to  his  wit's  end  and  for  hours  he 
hovers  trembling  upon  the  verge  of  despair.  Then 
another  thought  comes  to  him.  Perhaps  he  has 
made  a  mistake  in  trying  to  get  something  for 
nothing.  Perhaps  his  prayers  would  have  had 
more  weight  with  God  if  he  had  put  some  attract- 
ive offers  into  them.  And  so  he  decides  to  try 
again.  He  will  see  if  he  can  make  a  bargain  with 
God.  He  will  tell  God  that  if  He  will  make  his 
boy  well  he  will  do  thus  and  so.  He  will  be  a 
better  man;  a  better  father;  a  better  husband;  a 
better  neighbour.  He  will  go  to  church  oftener. 
He  will  contribute  more  to  missions  and  to  charity. 
He  will  do  almost  anything  that  God  would  have 
him  do. 

It  is  a  familiar  story  and  I  need  not  pursue  it 
further.  One  can  find  it  repeated  to  the  end  in 
every  community  in  Christendom.  The  only 
strange  thing  about  it  is  that  it  should  be  found  in 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  43 

Christendom.  That  is  why  I  have  mentioned  it: 
one  would  think  that  it  could  happen  only  in 
heathendom.  For  it  is  as  plain  as  the  sun  that  it  is 
a  purely  pagan  experience  throughout.  From  be- 
ginning to  end  there  is  not  a  single  Christian  idea 
or  even  a  single  reminder  of  anything  that  the 
Master  has  taught,  except  the  formula  "  In  Jesus' 
name,"  and  that  is  used  only  as  a  pagan  would  have 
used  it.  Such  an  experience  is  not  only  non- 
Christian,  but  it  is  un-Christian.  It  is  utterly  re- 
pugnant to  the  teaching  of  Christ.  The  man  who 
goes  to  God  with  an  eye  to  gain,  just  as  he  would 
go  to  a  rich  and  powerful  stranger,  does  not  pray: 
with  such  a  motive  he  cannot  pray.  He  can  beg, 
or  he  can  try  to  drive  a  bargain,  but  he  cannot 
pray. 

V 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  mercenary  ideas  of 
prayer  are  always  found  in  unmistakably  pagan 
company.  No  matter  how  orthodox  their  sur- 
roundings may  appear  they  are  invariably  associ- 
ated with  magical  ideas  of  prayer,  all  of  which  are 
plainly  pagan.  The  idea  that  there  is  some  myste- 
rious power  in  prayer  itself  seems  to  be  almost  as 
widespread  as  the  human  race.  One  meets  with  it 
in  Christian  America  almost  as  often  as  in  pagan 
India.  Everywhere  people  speak  of  prayer  as  they 
would  speak  of  a  magic  wand.  Undoubtedly  this 
idea  owes  something  of  its  persistence  to  the  ex- 


44     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  'I 

cessive  indulgence  of  the  pulpit  in  unexplained  fig- 
ures of  speech.  In  the  days  of  the  fathers,  when 
everybody  was  familiar  with  Biblical  metaphors, 
the  figurative  language  of  the  pulpit  was  usually 
illuminating,  but  to-day  it  often  happens  that  when 
the  preacher  thinks  he  is  shedding  light  he  is  only 
casting  a  shadow.  The  other  day  I  heard  a  ser- 
mon of  wonderful  beauty.  It  was  as  richly 
adorned  with  figures  as  a  piece  of  costly  tapestry, 
and  as  a  work  of  art  it  was  faultless ;  but  when  at 
the  close  of  the  service  a  distinguished  lawyer  was 
asked  how  he  liked  it,  he  replied:  "  Don't  ask  me: 
I  haven't  the  slightest  idea  of  what  he  was  talking 
about." 

Unquestionably  the  preachers'  habit  of  speaking 
of  prayer  in  highly  coloured  figures  of  speech  has 
done  much  toward  mystifying  the  popular  mind  on 
the  subject  and  encouraging  the  idea  that  it  is  a 
mysterious  something  that  will  work  amazing 
tricks  if  one  only  knows  how  to  use  it.  How 
often  we  were  told  in  our  childhood  that  prayer  is 
a  bell-rope  let  down  from  heaven  to  God's  children 
and  that  if  we  only  had  the  faith  to  take  hold  of  it 
and  pull  hard  enough  we  would  ring  a  bell  in 
heaven  that  would  inevitably  bring  God  down  to 
our  help!  Then  there  was  that  amazing  story 
about  Jacob  and  the  angel.  How  the  dear  old 
preachers  loved  to  linger  over  that  wonderful 
wrestling  match,  and  how  earnestly  they  would  as- 
sure their  hearers  that  if  they  would  only  wrestle 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  45" 

with  God  in  prayer  with  Jacob's  faith  and  per-  ■ 
sistence  they  would  prevail  over  Him  and  win  the 
light !  How  often  we  were  assured  that  by  prayer 
we  could  take  hold  of  the  throne  of  God  and  shake 
it!  Prayer  could  do  anything.  Prayer  was  a 
magic  wand  which,  if  we  would  wave  toward 
heaven  with  faith,  would  cause  the  windows  of 
blessing  to  open  and  all  the  good  things  of  God 
would  come  tumbling  down  upon  us.  Prayer  was 
a  lever  which,  if  placed  upon  the  fulcrum  of  faith, 
could  move  heaven  and  earth.  Most  of  these  old 
figures  have  long  since  passed  away,  but  the  figu- 
rative habit  is  still  with  us.  To-day  we  are  told 
that  prayer  is  a  dynamo — a  dynamo  of  such  power 
that  if  we  only  had  a  belt  of  faith  strong  enough  it 
could  run  the  machinery  of  the  whole  universe. 
Prayer  is  a  reservoir  of  power  which,  if  tapped  by 
the  faith  of  God's  people,  would  release  enough 
force  to  carry  the  Kingdom  of  God  into  the  far- 
thest corners  of  the  earth.  A  prayer  is  a  stick  of 
dynamite,  and  if  God's  people  would  only  put  their 
sticks  together  and  set  them  all  off  at  one  time  they 
could  blow  up  this  sinful  old  world  and  make  it 
over  as  God  wants  it  to  be !  And  so  on.  Only  a 
few  weeks  ago  the  manager  of  a  nation-wide 
church  campaign  proclaimed  in  flaming  advertise- 
ments all  over  the  land  that  prayer  is  the  Church's 
only  source  of  power  and  America's  only  hope. 

But  the  blame  for  the  persistence  of  magical 
ideas  of  prayer  does  not  rest  wholly  or  mainly 


46     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

upon  our  highly  figurative  pulpit.  Unquestionably 
many  people  have  taken  the  pulpit's  metaphors 
more  or  less  literally,  but  they  would  never  have 
been  seriously  misled  by  them  if  they  had  not 
shared  this  uncanny  feeling  about  prayer  which 
seems  to  be  almost  as  widespread  as  the  race.  And 
this  feeling  is  undoubtedly  an  inheritance  from  our 
pagan  ancestors.  Our  modern  prayer  chains,  our 
elaborate  schemes  to  keep  a  stream  of  prayer  as- 
cending to  heaven  without  a  break  so  that  the  cry 
of  human  need  shall  never  cease  in  the  ear  of  God, 
the  schedules  of  prayer  campaigns  designed  to  se- 
cure the  united  prayers  of  God's  people  on  particu- 
lar days  for  particular  causes,  so  that  heaven  would 
be  bombarded  one  day  with  petitions  for  missions, 
and  the  next  day  with  petitions  for  our  schools  or 
our  orphanages,  and  the  third  day  with  petitions 
for  stricken  Europe — all  these  things,  however 
pious  they  may  be,  so  far  as  they  are  prompted  by 
magical  ideas  of  prayer,  have  their  origin  in  pagan- 
ism. Christians  may  properly  have  a  part  in  them 
if  they  go  into  them  with  Christian  ideas  of  prayer, 
but  not  if  they  go  under  the  influence  of  magical 
ideas,  all  of  which,  as  I  have  said,  are  purely  pagan. 

VI 

What  I  have  said  of  our  magical  ideas  of  prayer 
is  just  as  true  of  our  mechanical  ideas  of  prayer, 
most  of  which  have  grown  out  of  them.  The  idea 
that  the  mere  saying  of  certain  pra^^rs  regardless 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  47 

of  the  state  of  one's  mind  or  heart  has  virtue  in  it 
is,  of  course,  a  pagan  inheritance.  This  idea  pre- 
vails among  all  sorts  of  Christians — Protestant 
and  Catholic, — but  neither  Protestants  nor  Catho- 
lics teach  it:  it  is  a  survival  of  paganism.  The  girl 
who  says  her  prayers  while  her  mind  is  wandering 
through  a  romantic  adventure  may  be  praying  as  a 
pagan  but  not  as  a  Christian.  The  man  who  says 
his  prayers  on  Sunday  while  planning  an  ungodly 
deed  for  Monday  is  no  more  engaged  in  Christian 
prayer  than  the  heathen  who  prays  to  the  gods  to 
give  him  success  in  robbing  his  neighbour. 

The  idea  that  persistent  praying  brings  God 
under  obligation  to  us  is, also  pagan.  The  pious 
mother  who  consoles  herself  with  the  thought  that 
God  is  bound  to  answer  her  prayers  for  her  way- 
ward son  simply  because  she  has  prayed  so  many 
years  for  him,  is  no  doubt  a  good  Christian,  but  on 
that  particular  point  she  is  only  voicing  the  faith  of 
her  pious  heathen  ancestors. 

Finally — or  rather  to  make  an  end,  for  there  are 
still  others — the  idea  that  prayer  was  designed  to 
enable  us  to  prevail  upon  God  to  conform  to  our 
wishes  is  purely  pagan.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  is 
the  fundamental  idea  of  all  pagan  prayers.  Away 
back  in  the  dim  dawn  of  history  we  find  men  going 
to  God  with  the  hope  of  getting  Him  to  drop  His 
wishes  for  theirs.  They  conceived  of  God  as  a 
being  like  themselves,  engrossed  in  His  own  selfish 
plans  and  pur^ts,  some  of  which  often  cut  ruth- 


I 


48     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

lessly  across  their  own  plans  and  pursuits,  and  they 
hoped  by  some  means  or  other  to  get  Him  to  drop 
whatever  He  was  doing  that  interfered  with  them. 
And  so  they  came  with  gifts  in  their  hands.  They 
tried  to  get  Him  in  a  good  humour.  They  tried  to 
buy  Him  off.  They  tried  to  drive  bargains  with 
Him.  They  even  tried  to  cheat  Him.  Later  they 
conceived  the  idea  that  He  was  merciful  and  they 
tried  to  excite  His  pity.  Everything  they  did  was 
with  the  hope  of  getting  Him  into  a  frame  of  mind 
to  consent  to  drop  His  wishes  and  plans  for  theirs. 
They  wanted  Him  to  suspend  His  own  selfish  busi- 
ness in  the  skies  and  come  down  and  interest  Him- 
self in  their  affairs.  They  realized,  perhaps  as 
clearly  as  we  do  to-day,  that  God  and  men  were  not 
on  good  terms,  and  that  this  was  the  cause  of  all 
their  woes ;  and  they  went  to  God  to  **  make  up  '* 
with  Him.  And  in  their  blindness  they  thought 
only  of  the  pleasanter  way.  They  would  persuade 
God  to  come  to  their  side.  If  He  would  drop  His 
wishes  and  plans  for  theirs  then  they  would  be  on 
the  best  of  terms  and  everything  would  be  harmo- 
nious and  lovely.  God  would  no  more  play  with 
thunderbolts  where  there  was  danger  of  striking 
their  loved  ones  dead,  and  there  would  be  no  more 
terrible  storms  to  sweep  away  their  harvests  at 
reaping  time. 

It  never  occurred  to  them  that  there  was  any 
other  way.  It  never  occurred  to  them  that  God 
might  require  them  to  come  to  His  side  and  har- 


Our  Pagan  Ideas  of  Prayer  49 

monize  with  Him.     They  only  thought  of  getting 
Him  to  harmonize  with  them. 

It  is  needless  to  inquire  how  this  amazing  idea 
became  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  human  mind.  It  is 
important  only  to  know  that  it  is  there,  that  it  per- 
sists in  spite  of  the  significant  fact  that  it  has  never 
been  known  to  work,  and  in  spite  of  the  equally 
significant  fact  that  for  ages  it  has  had  to  contend 
with  Christ's  own  fundamental  idea  of  prayer, 
which  has  never  failed  to  work  and  which  is  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  it.  For  nearly  two  thousand 
years  the  Christian  pulpit  has  been  proclaiming  in 
season  and  out  of  season  that  the  only  way  a  man 
can  come  into  harmony  with  God,  the  Supreme 
Source  of  Supply,  is  to  drop  his  own  will  and  go 
and  fall  in  with  God's  will,  and  yet  there  are  still 
vast  multitudes  of  Christians  in  the  world  who  are 
clinging  to  the  hope  of  getting  their  wants  supplied 
by  inducing  God  to  drop  His  will  and  come  down 
and  fall  in  with  theirs. 


IV 

OUR  MISINTERPRETATIONS  OF  THE 
MASTER 

I 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  ideas  of  prayer  which  we 
have  inherited  from  our  pagan  ancestors  owe 
much  of  their  strength  and  persistence  to  our 
popular  misinterpretations  of  the  teachings  of 
Jesus.  The  most  depressing,  if  not  the  most  hu- 
mihating  fact  in  the  history  of  Christianity  is  that 
after  nearly  two  thousand  years  of  unceasing  ef- 
fort to  explain  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  He  is  still 
the  most  widely  misinterpreted  teacher  the  world 
has  ever  known.  If  we  should  undertake  to-day 
to  erect  a  truthful  monument  to  His  memory  we 
could  think  of  no  name  that  could  be  so  appropri- 
ately carved  upon  it  as  The  Misunderstood  Master. 
The  world  understands  Buddha  fairly  well,  and 
Confucius  and  Plato  and  the  rest ;  but  it  does  not 
understand  Jesus.  Rather  it  misunderstands  Him. 
It  seems  to  have  a  fatal  bent  toward  misunder- 
standing Him.  One  would  think  from  the  way  it 
approaches  Him  that  it  really  prefers  to  misunder- 
stand Him.    Nobody  is  unfair  to  Buddha  or  Plato, 

so 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master      5 1 

but  even  the  best  friends  of  Jesus  are  unfair  to 
Jesus.  Nobody  is  so  foolish  as  to  subject  the 
teachings  of  Buddha  to  a  set  of  cast-iron  rules  of 
interpretation  made  in  America  and  based  upon 
one's  knowledge  of  America  and  the  American 
mind,  life  and  character  of  to-day ;  but  most  people 
insist  upon  treating  the  teachings  of  Jesus  that 
way.  Most  people — even  most  Christians — insist 
upon  making  the  words  of  Jesus  mean  what  they 
would  mean  if  they  were  spoken  by  an  American 
to  Americans  of  to-day,  instead  of  by  an  Oriental 
to  a  particular  type  of  Orientals  of  two  thousand 
years  ago. 

And  this  is  not  all.  We  not  only  apply  to  the 
teachings  of  Christ  rules  which  are  not  applicable 
to  them,  but  we  insist  upon  approaching  them  with 
methods  of  study  which  we  would  not  think  of 
using  in  any  other  serious  study  whatever. 

No  wonder  we  have  missed  the  way.  No  won- 
der we  have  wandered  so  far  from  the  footsteps  of 
Jesus  that  we  sometimes  wonder  whether  we  have 
a  right  to  call  ourselves  Christians.  No  wonder 
we  are  to-day  translating  the  words  of  Jesus  out 
of  the  vernacular  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  into 
the  selfish  language  of  a  materialistic  world.  No 
wonder  we  are  putting  so  much  business  into  our 
religion  that  it  is  becoming  more  of  a  business  than 
a  religion.  No  wonder  we  have  organized  and  de- 
veloped the  Church  into  a  vast,  complicated,  noisy 
machine  that  is  no  more  like  the  Church  of  the 


52     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  *? 

days  of  the  apostles  than  a  modern  steel  plant, 
with  its  frightful  furnaces  and  horrible  din,  is  like 
a  quiet  fire  in  the  living-room  in  the  evening  twi- 
light with  four  feet  on  the  fender. 

II 

At  the  close  of  the  World  War  a  prominent 
Australian  made  a  speech  at  a  banquet  in  England, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  amazed  and  humiliated 
his  hearers  by  casting  what  seemed  to  be  a  gratui- 
tous and  unspeakably  gross  insult  upon  America. 
It  was  so  plainly  worded  that  it  was  impossible  for 
even  the  most  charitably  inclined  to  twist  the  insult 
out  of  it,  and  his  friends  were  compelled  to  resort 
to  the  ancient  apology  that  he  had  taken  "  a  leetle 
drop  too  much."  But  the  next  day  when  the  man 
learned  through  the  newspapers  how  his  words  had 
been  taken  he  was  as  greatly  amazed  and  humili- 
ated as  his  friends.  He  had  never  thought  of  in- 
sulting America.  He  had  no  desire  to  insult 
America.  He  was  incapable  of  insulting  America. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  not  even  thinking  of 
America.  He  had  been  greatly  wrought  up  over 
an  unjust  criticism  of  the  British  Government 
and  as  a  loyal  Britisher  he  was  doing  his  best  to 
answer  it.     That  was  all  there  was  of  it. 

I  mention  this  incident  not  only  because  it  shows 
how  easy  it  is  to  misunderstand  others  under  the 
most  favourable  conditions,  but  to  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  more  literal  and  matter  of  fact  a 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master     53 

people  are  the  more  Hkely  they  are  to  misunder- 
stand others.  It  is  not  the  imaginative  Oriental, 
who  does  his  thinking  in  highly  coloured  meta- 
phors, who  has  the  greatest  difficulty  in  under- 
standing a  public  speaker,  but  the  unimaginative 
Westerner  who  calls  a  spade  a  spade,  and  who  has 
no  appreciation  of  the  subtle  niceties  of  the  mind 
that  would  prefer  to  think  of  it  as  an  unnamed  ag- 
ricultural implement  of  uncertain  origin. 

It  is  as  easy  to  misunderstand  as  it  is  to  assume 
that  we  do  understand,  and  whatever  may  be  said 
of  the  Westerner's  fondness  for  hard  work,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  when  it  comes  to  thinking  he  pre- 
fers the  easier  task.  We  misunderstand  largely 
because  we  so  easily  assume  that  we  do  understand. 
Taking  a  man's  words  to  mean  what  they  say  on 
the  surface  is  so  much  easier  than  to  admit  that  we 
are  not  prepared  to  say  what  he  means  until  we 
have  gone  beneath  the  surface.  It  is  no  small  job 
to  dig  down  beneath  the  surface — to  find  out  where 
the  words  came  from;  in  what  age  and  country 
they  were  spoken;  the  race  and  civilization  and 
habits  of  speech  of  the  man  who  spoke  them;  the 
character  of  his  language — whether  literal  or  figu- 
rative; his  modes  of  thought;  his  knowledge;  his 
life  and  character;  his  ideals  and  aspirations.  In 
other  words  it  is  so  much  easier  to  be  unfair  than 
fair. 

This  undoubtedly  is  one  reason  why  we  have  so 
persistently  misinterpreted  Jesus. 


54     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

The  world  has  never  had  a  teacher  whom  it  has 
treated  as  unfairly  as  it  has  treated  the  Master. 

If  a  neighbour  should  come  to  me  and  repeat  a 
seemingly  unkind  remark  which  a  friend  of  mine 
had  made  about  me,  I  would  not  take  the  remark 
at  its  face  value.  I  would  not  at  once  take  it  at 
any  value  at  all.  There  are  several  things  I  would 
have  to  know  before  I  would  even  take  it  under 
consideration.  I  would  have  to  know  when  and 
where  the  remark  was  made,  to  whom  it  was  made 
and  under  what  circumstances  it  was  made.  I 
would  want  to  know  whether  my  friend  was  in  a 
serious  or  jocular  mood,  and  if  it  appeared  that  he 
was  not  joking  I  would  want  to  know  what  had  led 
up  to  the  remark  and  what  followed  it.  And  if 
my  neighbour  could  not  enlighten  me  on  any  of 
these  points  I  would  show  him  the  door  and  dis- 
miss the  remark  along  with  him.  I  would  not  be 
worthy  of  my  friend  if  I  took  to  heart  what  my 
neighbour  told  me,  when  on  his  own  confession  he 
did  not  even  know  what  my  friend  was  talking 
about.  Certainly  I  would  not  allow  such  a  man  to 
interpret  my  friend's  words  for  me.  I  would  not 
even  allow  him  to  interpret  my  dog's  bark  for  me. 

Ill 

We  are  never  quite  so  unfair — certainly  we  are 
never  so  inexcusably  unfair  as  when  we  insist  upon 
holding  a  man  responsible  for  his  words  just  as 
they  stand  without  regard  to  their  connection  or  to 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master     55 

the  circumstances  under  which  they  were  spoken. 
I  can  make  a  man  say  anything  I  wish  by  that 
method.  I  can  prove  him  to  be  a  liar  or  a  thief  or 
a  saint  or  anything  else  by  that  method.  We  have 
a  few  sayings  which  are  as  complete  in  themselves 
as  gems,  and  like  gems  they  will  shine  whether  you 
take  them  out  of  their  setting  or  not.  But  most  of 
our  sentences,  however  illuminating  they  may  ap- 
pear, are  not  like  gems :  they  are  like  eyes,  and  the 
moment  you  take  them  out  of  their  sockets  their 
light  is  gone.  Who  would  care  to  be  judged  or  to 
have  his  eyes  judged  by  a  man  who  never  saw  his 
eyes  until  a  surgeon  took  them  out  of  their  sockets 
and  carried  them  to  him  ? 

All  this  goes  without  saying  and  yet  for  nearly 
two  thousand  years  the  average  Christian  teacher 
has  been  cutting  the  words  of  Jesus  out  of  their 
connection,  as  a  surgeon  would  cut  an  eye  out  of 
its  socket,  and  holding  them  up  before  the  world 
and  demanding  that  they  should  be  accepted  just  as 
they  appear,  regardless  of  where  they  came  from 
or  any  other  consideration  whatsoever. 

We  verily  thought  a  few  years  ago  that  we  were 
outgrowing  this  childish  habit,  but  the  World  War 
rudely  broke  the  spell  of  that  fond  illusion.  The 
World  War  was  not  a  month  old  before  learned 
college  professors  were  springing  to  their  feet  all 
over  the  land  to  remind  us  of  what  Jesus  told  us 
about  turning  the  other  cheek,  and  to  warn  us  that 
if  we  did  not  take  His  words  literally  we  were  not 


j;6     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

followers  of  the  Master  Teacher.  Every  day  we 
were  told  that  if  those  words  did  not  mean  just 
what  they  appeared  to  mean  on  the  surface  they 
did  not  mean  anything. 

And  everywhere,  until  the  day  of  America's  en- 
trance into  the  war,  the  sentiment  was  received 
with  vigorous  applause. 

That  was  the  way  we  treated  the  words  of  Jesus. 
And  we  did  it  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  knew  that 
if  the  courts  of  the  land  were  allowed  to  interpret 
a  man's  words  as  those  men  treated  the  words  of 
Jesus,  there  was  not  a  learned  professor  in  Amer- 
ica who  could  not  be  convicted  of  a  capital  offense 
and  sentenced  to  the  electric  chair ! 

It  is  possible  for  even  learned  professors  to  yield 
to  the  temptation  to  follow  the  lines  of  easiest  re- 
sistance, and  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  this 
strange  habit  persists  for  any  other  reason  than 
that  the  race  (including  its  learned  professors)  is 
still  human.  Doubtless  it  is  mainly  because  it  is  so 
easy  that  intelligent  teachers  are  still  engaged  in 
the  unintelligent  task  of  pulling  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  out  of  their  sockets  and  interpreting  them 
without  regard  to  where  they  came  from ;  and  it  is 
for  the  same  reason  that  the  average  audience, 
however  intelligent  it  may  be,  is  still  meekly  if  not 
enthusiastically  swallowing  their  interpretations. 
It  was  because  it  was  so  much  easier  to  accept  than 
to  question  that  those  antebellum  audiences  so 
readily  accepted  the  Master's  command  to  turn  the 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master      57 

other  cheek  without  so  much  as  stopping  to  ask 
whether  the  Master  ever  turned  His  own  cheek. 

It  is  not  mainly  because  the  world  does  not  want 
to  fall  in  with  the  teachings  of  Jesus  that  it  treats 
Him  so  unfairly.  It  is  true  that  we  treat  Him 
worse  than  men  usually  treat  their  enemies.  It  is 
true  that  we  take  advantage  of  His  words  in  the 
same  way  that  a  conscienceless  browbeating  lawyer 
would  take  advantage  of  the  words  of  a  witness  to 
prove  him  a  liar,  and  that  we  do  this  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  we  have  no  patience  with  any  man 
who  quotes  the  words  of  his  opponent  unfairly, 
however  unfair  his  opponent  may  have  been  to 
him.  Nevertheless,  so  long  as  there  are  good 
Christians  in  the  world  who  are  unfair  to  Jesus  it 
cannot  be  said  that  the  world  is  unfair  to  Him  only 
because  it  hates  Him.  It  is  unfair  mainly  because 
it  has  fallen  into  a  lazy  mental  habit. 

IV 
That  well-meaning  but  painfully  short-sighted 
individual  who  cut  up  the  Bible  into  verses  and 
thereby  prepared  the  way  for  the  use  and  abuse  of 
so-called  proof -texts,  is  probably  responsible  for 
more  misinterpretations  of  the  words  of  Jesus  than 
all  the  enemies  of  Jesus  put  together.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  trace  the  influence  of  the  proof-text 
habit  upon  popular  religious  beliefs  during  the  last 
three  centuries.  Even  as  late  as  twenty-five  years 
ago  the  method  of  proving  a  doctrine  by  proof- 


58     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

texts  was  in  high  favour  almost  everywhere  out- 
side of  'our  college  communities.  In  those  days 
nearly  every  preacher's  library  contained  one  or 
more  well-thumbed  proof-text  reference  books.  I 
recall  at  this  moment  a  monumental  work  which 
not  a  few  preachers  were  using  largely  in  the 
place  of  the  Bible  itself — a  book  composed  entirely 
of  Biblical  verses  arranged  under  the  doctrines 
which  they  were  supposed  to  prove  or  support. 
All  a  busy  man  had  to  do  when  called  upon  to  de- 
fend a  favourite  doctrine  was  to  go  to  this  book 
and  copy  all  the  verses  that  were  printed  under  that 
head.  Thus  equipped,  he  was  ready  to  stand  be- 
fore kings. 

A  hundred  years  ago  the  proof-text  habit  was  so 
strong  that  it  was  not  uncommon  for  a  hard- 
pressed  preacher  to  yield  to  the  temptation  to  im- 
prove on  the  original  method  by  leaving  out  a  part 
of  a  verse  to  make  the  text  come  nearer  meaning 
what  he  wished  to  teach.  A  threadbare  story  that 
has  come  down  to  us  from  those  simple  times  tells 
of  a  pioneer  preacher  who,  unable  to  find  a  text 
from  which  he  might  preach  a  sermon  against  the 
new  feminine  fashion  of  wearing  the  "  knot "  on 
top  of  the  head,  naively  cut  from  the  text  "  Let 
him  that  is  upon  the  housetop  not  come  down/*  the 
first  six  and  a  half  words  ("  Let  him  that  is  upon 
the  house-"),  and  confidently  announced  the  re- 
mainder as  the  Master's  command  to  his  feminine 
hearers:  "Top-not,  come  down!" 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master      59 

This  so-called  proof-text  method  (which  has 
never  proved  anything  except  the  depths  to  which 
mental  laziness  can  carry  us)  shares  with  our  in- 
herited paganism  the  responsibility  for  nearly  all 
of  the  popular  misinterpretations  of  the  Master's 
teachings  that  are  current  to-day.  It  was  this 
rhethod,  more  than  anything  else,  that  led  to  the 
now  widely  prevalent  habit  of  interpreting  His 
words  as  if  they  were  spoken  by  an  Occidental  in- 
stead of  by  an  Oriental.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  know  just  how  much  this  slovenly  habit  has  cost 
us.  It  would  not  be  so  bad  if  it  were  only  a  sin  of 
ignorance;  it  is  worse:  it  is  a  sin  of  carelessness, 
which  unhappily  is  not  confined  to  the  illiterate. 

When  a  newly  arrived  Oriental  opens  his  little 
shop  on  the  next  corner  we  console  ourselves  (after 
our  first  futile  attempts  at  modest  trade)  with  the 
reflection  that  as  soon  as  he  understands  our  lan- 
guage he  will  be  able  to  understand  us.  And  usu- 
ally he  cheers  himself  with  the  same  thought.  But 
.when  at  last  he  succeeds  in  understanding  what  we 
say,  we  discover  that  he  has  only  made  a  beginning. 
To  an  Oriental  it  is  a  far  cry  from  the  point  of 
understanding  what  we  say  to  the  point  of  under- 
standing what  we  mean.  And  so  it  is  with  Occi- 
dentals, like  ourselves:  long  after  we  have  mas- 
tered the  words  of  our  Oriental  neighbour  in  the 
little  store  on  the  corner  we  are  still  struggling 
desperately  with  our  strangely  fatal  tendency  to 
take  them  backwards. 


6o     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  *? 

To  know  what  an  Oriental  means  I  must  not 
only  know  his  language,  but  I  must  know  how  he 
uses  it.  I  must  know  something  of  his  mind — 
how  it  works ;  whether  it  is  logical  according  to  the 
Western  idea  or  not.  I  must  bear  in  mind  as  I 
listen  to  his  words  that  he  is  philosophical  and  not 
scientific;  that  while  he  thinks  in  figures,  they  are 
not  Arabic  figures  but  figures  of  speech.  I  must 
learn  his  peculiar  ways  of  expressing  himself. 
Also  I  must  learn  something  of  his  emotional  na- 
ture; something  of  his  heart;  something  of  his  life; 
something  of  his  knowledge;  something  of  his 
ideals  and  character.  In  a  word,  to  know  what  he 
means  I  must  know  the  man  himself. 

All  this  is  plain  enough  as  to  the  Oriental  on 
the  corner  and  in  our  dealings  with  him  we  usually 
keep  these  things  in  mind.  We  try  to  be  fair.  We 
try  to  remember  that  he  is  an  Oriental  and  that  we 
have  no  right  to  make  his  words  mean  what  they 
would  mean  if  they  were  spoken  by  Smith  or  Jones 
or  by  ourselves.  And  yet  when  we  come  to  the 
words  of  Jesus,  somehow^  we  forget.  Somehow 
our  first  impulse  is  to  make  them  mean  just  what 
they  would  mean  If  they  w^ere  spoken  by  a  modern 
American  to  an  American  audience. 

Of  course  we  are  not  wholly  without  excuse. 
We  can  say  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  Jesus  was  won- 
derfully cosmopolitan  and  that  His  words  are 
much  plainer  than  the  words  of  any  other  Oriental 
teacher,  ancient  or  modern.     And  we  can  say  that 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master      6l 

His  message  is  as  cosmopolitan  as  He  was,  and  is 
so  well  adapted  to  all  times  and  places  and  races 
that  no  nation  or  tribe  has  ever  been  found  where 
men  could  not  understand  His  Gospel  well  enough 
to  accept  it  and  be  saved.  Nevertheless,  the  fact 
remains  that  when  Jesus  came  into  the  world  He 
took  upon  Himself  our  humanity  with  its  limita- 
tions; that  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  cosmo- 
politan character  of  His  mind  and  message,  He 
was  born  an  Oriental  Jew,  brought  up  as  an 
Oriental  Jew,  taught  to  think  and  express  His 
thoughts  as  a  Jew  of  Palestine  of  His  own 
century,  and  to  the  end  of  His  life  spoke  as  an 
Oriental  to  audiences  of  Orientals.  We  must  not 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  if  He  had  not  expressed 
His  thoughts  as  an  Oriental  his  hearers  would  not 
have  understood  Him  and  the  world  would  never 
have  heard  of  Him. 


V 

Elsewhere  *  in  a  discussion  of  the  Oriental  char- 
acter of  the  Master's  teachings  I  have  used  this 
illustration: 

"  In  His  walks  abroad  Jesus  was  always  fol- 
lowed by  a  crowd.  It  was  a  terribly  hungry 
crowd.  Now  and  then  He  would  turn  and  speak 
to  them  and  His  words  would  be  as  the  handful  of 

*"What  Did  Jesus  Really  Teach  About  War?"  Fleming 
H.  Revell  Company. 


62     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

corn  which  the  farmer  throws  out  now  and  then  to 
toll  his  pigs  along.  They  would  follow  Him  all 
day  if  He  would  only  give  them  a  word  now  and 
then.  Sometimes  His  sayings  would  melt  their 
hearts;  sometimes  they  would  pierce  them;  some- 
times they  would  confuse  them;  but  they  would 
take  everything  He  gave  them  and  follow  on  for 
more. 

"  One  day  He  suddenly  turned  about  and  with  a 
severity  which  must  have  startled  them  said : 

"  *  If  a  man  cometh  unto  me  and  hateth  not  his 
own  father,  and  mother,  and  wife,  and  children, 
and  brethren,  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life 
also,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple.' 

"  It  was  a  horrible  speech.  At  least  so  it  would 
have  sounded  in  our  ears.  If  a  teacher  of  a  new 
religion  should  utter  such  a  sentiment  before  an 
American  audience  to-day  he  would  be  hissed  off 
the  platform.  If  the  people  who  listened  to  Jesus 
that  day  had  listened  with  our  ears  they  would 
have  done  worse.  They  would  have  cast  dust  into 
the  air.  They  would  have  thrown  stones  at  Him. 
They  would  have  cursed  Him  as  a  blasphemer ;  for 
in  their  minds  reverence  for  parents  was  insepa- 
rable from  reverence  for  God. 

"  But  they  were  Orientals  and  they  listened  with 
Oriental  ears.  And  because  they  listened  with 
Oriental  ears  nothing  happened.  As  the  last  word 
fell  from  His  lips  He  turned  and  went  on  His  way, 
and  the  multitude  followed  on  quietly  as  before. 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master      63 

"  No  doubt  His  severity  had  startled  them,  but 
they  were  not  worried.  They  were  not  worried 
because  they  knew  how  to  take  Him.  They  had 
heard  Him  before.  They  had  looked  into  His  face 
before.  Time  and  again  they  had  caught  a  glimpse 
of  His  soul;  and  when  you  once  get  a  glimpse  of  a 
man's  soul  you  will  interpret  his  words  by  what 
you  see  in  his  soul  and  not  take  them  as  they  appear 
on  their  faces.  And  in  their  Teacher's  soul  they 
had  never  seen  anything  but  love.  They  knew  that 
He  loved  everybody  and  they  knew  that  if  there 
was  anything  in  the  world  that  He  hated  it  was 
hate.  He  would  not  even  let  them  hate  their  ene- 
mies. He  even  demanded  that  they  should  love 
their  enemies.  It  was  impossible  to  conceive  that 
He  would  have  them  hate  their  own  fathers  and 
mothers.  Whatever  He  might  mean,  He  could 
not  mean  that. 

"And  that  was  not  all.  They  not  only  knew 
what  He  did  not  mean  but  they  knew  what  He  did 
mean.  Being  Orientals  they  were  accustomed  to 
speeches  of  that  sort.  They  talked  that  way  them- 
selves. They  had  to  talk  that  way.  Everybody 
in  the  East  talks  that  way  to-day.  Everybody 
talks  in  pictures,  especially  pictures  of  violent  and 
startling  contrasts.  It  is  the  only  way  you  can 
make  yourself  understood.  If  I  wanted  to  Im- 
press an  American  with  the  height  of  the  moun- 
tains near  my  home  I  would  give  him  the  exact 
figures;  but  if  I  were  talking  to  a  Syrian  I  would 


64    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

give  him  no  figures  at  all:  I  would  only  give  him  a 
figure  of  speech.  I  would  point  to  his  little  moun- 
tains and  I  would  say:  'Ah!  you  should  see  my 
mountains.  By  the  side  of  my  mountains  those 
little  hills  yonder  would  be  mere  holes  in  the 
ground.'  And  he  would  understand.  If  I  should 
say  that  my  mountains  rise  seven  thousand  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea  it  would  mean  nothing 
to  him  at  all. 

"And  so  when  Jesus  told  the  crowd  that  day  that 
if  a  man  hated  not  his  father  and  mother  he  could 
not  be  His  disciple,  they  knew  what  He  was  trying 
to  do.  They  knew  that  He  was  simply  trying  to 
impress  upon  them  an  important  teaching  by 
means  of  a  picture  of  violent  and  startling  con- 
trasts. And  the  moment  they  looked  upon  the  pic- 
ture they  saw  what  it  meant.  They  saw  a  man  so 
bent  upon  following  his  teacher  that  he  was  even 
willing  to  renounce  his  own  father  and  mother. 
It  did  not  suggest  hate ;  it  only  suggested  devotion 
— wonderful  devotion.  And  so  they  knew  that 
what  the  Master  was  thinking  about  was  not  how 
they  should  feel  toward  their  fathers  and  mother-s, 
but  how  they  should  feel  toward  Him.  He  was 
not  thinking  of  hate  at  all;  He  was  thinking  of 
Iqye.  And  they  knew  that  what  He  meant  was 
not  that  they  must  hate  others,  but  that  they  must 
love  Him  and  must  love  Him  supremely.  '  Unless 
you  put  me  before  all  things;  unless  I  am  every- 
thing to  you,  you  cannot  be  my  disciple.'  '*    .    .    » 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master      65 

I  hope  I  have  made  my  meaning  clear.  The 
words  of  Jesus  are  the  words  of  an  Oriental  spoken 
to  an  Oriental  audience,  and  if  we  would  under- 
stand Him  we  must  put  ourselves  as  far  as  possible 
in  the  place  of  that  audience.  As  far  as  possible 
we  must  look  at  Him  through  Oriental  eyes  and 
listen  to  Him  with  Oriental  ears.  For,  as  I  have 
said,  to  understand  His  words  we  must  know  the 
Man.  The  Master  has  left  us  some  sayings  that 
are  as  complete  in  themselves  as  the  stars  that 
shine  by  their  own  light,  and  one  can  understand 
them  without  even  stopping  to  inquire  who  uttered 
them;  but  many  of  His  sayings  are  like  many  of 
ours:  that  is,  they  are  like  eyes;  the  moment  you 
separate  them  from  their  sockets  the  light  is  gone. 
The  moment  you  separate  them  from  the  Man 
who  uttered  them  the  light  is  gone.  Take  such 
sayings  as,  "Ask  and  ye  shall  receive,"  or  "If  ye 
shall  ask  anything  in  my  name  I  will  do  It,'*  apart 
from  the  general  tenor  of  the  Master's  teaching, 
apart  from  the  Master  Himself — His  mind,  His 
heart,  His  life — and  they  have  no  more  light  in 
them  than  eyeballs  torn  out  of  their  sockets  or 
electric  bulbs  disconnected  from  the  wires.  It  is 
only  when  we  make  connection  between  the  Man 
and  His  words  that  the  light  comes. 

VI 

But  the  habit  of  interpreting  the  words  of  an 
Oriental  as  if  they  were  spoken  by  an  Occidental 


66     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  *? 

is  not  the  only  evil  that  has  grown  out  of  the 
proof -text  method.  When  one  has  yielded  to  the 
temptation  to  interpret  the  words  of  Jesus  without 
regard  to  their  connection  it  is  only  a  question  of 
time  when  he  will  begin  to  jumble  them  together 
without  regard  to  their  logical  or  natural  order. 
And  if  he  happens  to  be  a  teacher  he  will  fall  into 
the  fatal  pedagogical  error  of  teaching  them  with- 
out regard  to  their  logical  or  natural  order.  This 
is  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  present  widespread  con- 
fusion as  to  the  meaning  of  prayer  in  the  minds  of 
our  young  people.  I  have  rarely  known  a  mother 
or  even  a  Sunday-school  teacher  who  did  not  teach 
the  subject  of  prayer  backwards.  Jesus  did  not 
study  pedagogy,  but  He  was  always  pedagogical. 
Nowhere  in  His  teachings  do  you  find  Him  putting 
the  cart  before  the  horse,  as  we  would  say  nowa- 
days, or  the  tree  before  the  seed,  or  the  stream  be- 
fore the  spring.  He  never  taught  a  truth  growing 
out  of  another  truth  until  He  had  taught  that  other 
truth.  He  did  not  attempt  to  teach  His  disciples 
the  senior  course  in  their  kindergarten  years, 
though  He  was  often  compelled  to  return  to  the 
kindergarten  course  in  their  senior  years.  He 
knew  the  mind  of  man  and  He  never  forgot  how 
necessary  it  is  in  teaching  a  series  of  related  truths 
to  begin  at  the  bottom  instead  of  at  the  top.  In 
teaching  His  Gospel  He  began  with  repentance, 
which  a  mere  child  could  understand,  and  ended 
with   the   mystical   union   of   the   Vine   and   the 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master     67 

Branches,  something  which  only  those  who  had 
entered  that  union  could  understand.  In  teaching 
His  doctrine  of  prayer  He  began  with  the  idea  of 
going  to  the  Father,  as  a  child  would  go  to  his 
earthly  father — something  the  humblest  beginner 
could  grasp — and  led  on  up  to  that  wonderful  for- 
mula— "  In  my  name," — a  mystery  which  can  be 
fully  grasped  only  by  mature  minds  long  accus- 
tomed to  delve  in  the  deep  things  of  God/ 

The  average  teacher  pursues  an  exactly  opposite 
course.  Instead  of  beginning  at  the  beginning  he 
begins  at  the  end.  Long  before  he  undertakes  to 
place  prayer  in  the  mind  of  the  child  upon  the 
ground  of  Fatherhood — sometimes  even  before  he 
has  taught  him  to  call  God  his  Father — he  under- 
takes to  teach  him  to  ask  in  Jesus'  name,  which  no 
mind  can  possibly  grasp  that  is  not  familiar  with 
the  idea  of  Fatherhood.  As  a  consequence  his 
pupils,  seeing  no  reason  for  it,  consider  that  it  is  a 
purely  artificial  formula  and  proceed  to  use  it  as 
such.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  child  trained 
in  the  average  home  or  the  average  Sunday-school 
who  is  not  under  the  impression  that  if  he  wants 
his  prayers  answered  he  must  not  forget  to  say 
"  For  Jesus'  sake  "  at  the  end. 

We  have  taught  our  children  many  harmful 

things,  but  aside  from  that  most  unchristian  of 

all  religious  teachings — ^the  teaching  that  God  does 

not  love  us  when  we  are  bad — I  can  think  of  noth- 

*  See  Chapter  X. 


68     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

ing  in  the  whole  history  of  reUgious  training  that 
has  done  so  much  harm  to  the  cause  of  Christ  as 
this  absurd  custom  of  solemnly  assuring  our  chil- 
dren before  they  have  clearly  grasped  a  single  idea 
of  prayer,  that  if  they  will  ask  God  for  what  they 
want  and  say,  "  For  Jesus'  sake,"  they  will  get 
it.     .     .     . 

We  need  not  pursue  the  matter  further.  While 
we  have  only  touched  the  fringes  of  the  subject  we 
have  seen  enough  of  our  misinterpretations  of  the 
Master's  teachings  and  of  the  slovenly  mental 
habits  which  are  accountable  for  many  of  them,  to 
realize  how  largely  they  are  responsible  for  the 
persistence  of  our  pagan  ideas  and,  in  consequence, 
for  the  present  distressing  religious  situation,  and 
to  form  some  idea  of  the  general  direction  in  which 
we  must  look  for  relief.  Plainly  we  cannot  con- 
tinue to  stand  where  we  are  to-day.  When  men's 
knees  tremble  something  must  be  done.  And 
men's  knees  are  trembling  to-day.  The  steady 
crumbling  of  the  foundations  of  faith  that  exist  in 
the  popular  mind  threatens  soon  to  leave  the  aver- 
age Christian  in  the  predicament  of  Noah's  dove — 
with  no  place  to  rest  the  soles  of  his  feet, — and  we 
must  look  for  firmer  foundations.  We  must  look 
for  firmer  foundations  while  we  may.  And  we 
must  look  for  them  In  the  only  place  where  we  can 
hope'' to  find  them — in  the  message  of  the  Master 
Teacher.     For  a  thousand  years  we  were  content 


Our  Misinterpretations  of  the  Master      69 

to  ask  what  the  Church  taught  about  prayer.  For 
the  last  fifty  years  or  more  we  have  been  anxiously 
asking  what  science  has  to  say  about  it.  It  is 
time  we  were  going  back  to  the  simple  days  of 
primitive  Christianity,  before  the  Church  acquired 
its  voice  of  authority  and  before  science  acquired  a 
voice  at  all,  and  asking,  as  all  earnest  believers 
asked  in  those  days,  What  did  the  Master  say 
about  it?  What  did  Jesus  really  teach  about 
prayer  ? 


WHAT  PRAYER  MEANT  TO  JESUS 

I 

TO  most  people  who  are  content  with  a 
second-hand  knowledge  of  God,  prayer  is 
simply  a  device  for  getting  something  for 
nothing  or  for  as  near  nothing  as  possible.  It  may 
be  the  act  of  a  beggar  or  it  may  be  the  act  of  a 
trader:  in  either  case  it  is  an  effort  of  him  who  has 
not  to  get  at  the  resources  of  him  who  has.  In 
other  words,  it  is  a  purely  selfish  undertaking  in 
which  no  interests  or  wishes  are  regarded  except 
one's  own.  As  for  God,  He  is  not  supposed  to 
have  any  part  in  the  matter  except  as  a  source  of 
supply.  He  is  like  the  head  of  the  family  in  a 
home  in  which  fathers  are  supposed  to  be  devices 
created  solely  for  the  convenience  of  children  who 
have  purses  to  fill. 

In  the  teachings  of  Jesus  selfishness,  instead  of 
being  the  soul  of  prayer,  is  its  worst  enemy.  Self- 
ishness cannot  enter  prayer  without  killing  it.  In- 
stead of  being  the  cry  of  a  selfish  heart,  prayer  is 
the  cry  of  a  heart  that  is  struggling  to  get  rid  of 
self;  a  heart  that  is  struggling  to  dethrone  self  and 

70 


What  Prayer  Meant  to  Jesus  71 

to  put  God  in  its  place.  To  Jesus  a  man  does  not 
really  approach  God  in  prayer  so  long  as  his  mind 
is  centered  in  himself;  he  approaches  Him  only 
when  he  is  more  concerned  about  God's  interests 
and  will  than  his  own,  or  when  he  is  struggling  to 
put  God's  interests  and  will  ahead  of  his  own. 

When  Jesus  came  the  mercenary  idea  of  prayer 
was  practically  universal.  Apparently  the  only 
human  beings  in  those  days  who  cried  to  God  un- 
selfishly— thinking  first  of  all  of  God's  will  and 
then  of  the  needs  of  their  fellow-men  and  lastly  of 
their  own  needs — were  a  few  choice  spirits  among 
the  Jews,  such  as  Simeon  and  Anna,  "  who  waited 
for  the  consolation  of  Israel,"  and  a  few  earnest 
seekers  after  God  groping  about  here  and  there  in 
the  vast  darkness  of  heathendom.  The  great  mass 
of  humanity  was  self-centered.  There  were  warm- 
hearted men  and  women  who  had  pity  upon  the 
poor  and  the  suffering,  and  there  were  a  few  de- 
voted worshippers  who  had  conceived  something 
of  a  passion  for  God,  but  nowhere  was  there  any- 
thing like  what  we  call  nowadays  a  passion  for 
humanity.  Selfishness  was  written  large  all  over 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

It  was  natural  that  the  world  in  that  day  should 
think  of  prayer  as  the  utterance  of  selfish  desire. 
Men  went  to  God's  altar  simply  with  the  hope  of 
getting  what  they  wanted.  It  was  no  business  of 
theirs  what  God  wanted  or  what  their  fellow-men 
needed.     It  was  a  matter  of  attending  to  one's  own 


72     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

business.  A  man  wanted  rain  for  his  crops  and  he 
valued  prayer  as  a  device  which  sometimes  brought 
rain;  and  he  used  it  whenever  his  crops  needed  it 
without  stopping  to  ask  what  other  men's  crops 
might  need  or  whether  it  v»/^ould  accord  with  God's 
plans  or  laws.  It  was  none  of  his  business  to  in- 
quire whether  the  rain  that  would  help  his  crop 
might  not  also  send  a  freshet  down  the  river  that 
would  destroy  a  hundred  men's  crops;  and  as  for 
God's  plans  or  laws,  he  never  gave  a  thought  to 
them. 

And  very  naturally  there  had  grown  up  around 
this  mercenary  idea  of  prayer  a  tangle  of  equally 
absurd  ideas,  such  as  we  associate  nowadays  with 
a  wizard's  mysterious  gestures  or  a  poor  illiterate's 
treasured  left  hind-foot  of  a  graveyard  rabbit. 
They  thought  of  their  prayers  as  having  virtue  in 
them.  Either  there  was  a  hidden  magical  power 
in  them  or  else  there  was  something  about  them 
that  would  cause  God  to  keep  account  of  them  and 
place  them  to  their  credit — something  to  encourage 
them  to  believe  that  they  would  be  heard  if  they 
would  only  say  their  prayers  often  enough  or  long 
enough.  Even  among  the  Jews  of  that  day  it  was 
commonly  believed  that  men  would  be  heard  for 
their  "  much  speaking." 

II 

To  Jesus  these  ideas  were  not  only  foolish  but 
utterly  repugnant.    His  sensitive  soul  shrank  from 


What  Prayer  Meant  to  Jesus  73 

the  proud  Pharisee  standing  on  the  street  corner 
mumbHng  his  prayers — shrank  as  a  beautiful,  re- 
fined woman  would  shrink  from  a  loathsome  leper. 
There  were  two  things  about  men  which  He 
seemed  never  to  have  been  quite  prepared  for :  one 
was  that  men  could  doubt  the  Father's  care  and  the 
other  was  that  they  could  so  entirely  misjudge  the 
Father's  mind  and  heart.  How  could  any  sane 
man  doubt  his  Father  ?  And  how  could  any  sane 
man  imagine  that  he  could  influence  his  Father 
simply  by  repeating  certain  words  regardless  of  the 
state  of  his  mind  or  heart?  Or  how  could  any- 
body imagine  that  the  Father  would  be  pleased 
with  one's  prayers  when  one  was  not  really  praying, 
at  all,  but  only  saying  prayers  on  the  street  corners 
to  make  people  think  he  was  pious  ? 

All  this  was  as  horrifying  to  the  Master  as  the 
attempt  of  an  unnatural  child  to  work  "  tricks  " 
on  his  father  for  gain  would  be  to  us.  He  could 
not  think  of  the  prayers  of  the  Pharisees  as  real 
prayers:  they  were  only  pagan  tricks.  To  His 
mind  prayer  was  not  a  beggar's  scheme  or  a 
trader's  device:  it  was  a  child's  privilege.  To  the 
pagan  it  was  a  plot  to  get  something  from  God ;  to 
Jesus  it  was  the  privilege  of  unbosoming  oneself  to 
one's  heavenly  Father.  It  was  not  primarily  an 
opportunity  to  get  something  but  an  opportunity  to 
give  something.  The  world  thought  of  prayer- 
only  in  connection  with  its  answer ;  it  was  not  in- 
terested in  anything  except  the  answer.     Jesus  also 


74     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

thought  of  the  answer,  and  He  urged  men  to  pray 
with  the  expectation  of  receiving  an  answer,  but 
He  did  not  urge  them  to  pray  because  He  regarded 
the  answer  as  the  only  thing  or  even  the  main  thing 
that  made  prayer  worth  while.  To  His  mind 
prayer  was  not  given  to  us  mainly  that  we  might 
get  what  we  asked  for,  any  more  than  the  privilege 
of  going  to  one's  father  or  mother  was  given  to 
children  mainly  that  they  might  get  what  they 
asked  for. 

Fathers  and  mothers  can  provide  for  their  chil- 
dren's wants  fairly  well'  without  any  suggestions 
from  them,  and  if  there  were  no  other  reason  why 
a  child  should  go  to  his  parents  it  is  not  likely  that 
in  the  development  of  the  family  this  privilege 
would  have  come  to  be  generally  recognized. 
Most  parents  would  have  said  that  they  knew  bet- 
ter what  John  needed  than  he  did  and  didn't  care 
to  be  bothered  with  his  suggestions.  Time  was 
too  precious  anyway.  But  fathers  and  mothers 
came  in  the  course  of  time  to  realize  that  while 
they  could  provide  for  their  children's  material 
wants  without  any  help  from  them,  there  were 
other  and  more  important  needs — needs  of  the 
mind  and  heart — ^which  they  could  not  meet  unless 
^their  children  would  open  their  minds  and  hearts  to 
them.  And  so  as  the  race  developed,  wise  parents 
began  to  take  time  to  cultivate  their  children's  com- 
panionship. John  was  encouraged  to  unbosom 
himself  to  his  father.     Mary  was  encouraged  to 


What  Prayer  Meant  to  Jesus  75 

open  her  heart  and  lay  bare  all  its  secrets  to  her 
mother. 

It  was  not  until  God  put  it  into  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women  to  look  after  the  higher  needs  of  their 
children  and  thus  led  them  to  make  bosom  com- 
panions of  them  that  the  race  got  its  first  real  start 
toward  its  divine  destiny.  That  was  the  real  be- 
ginning of  the  home.  Before  that  the  race  had 
only  eating  and  sleeping  places.  When  children 
began  to  have  the  privilege  of  living  in  the  presence 
of  their  parents,  and  parents  grew  sufficiently  con- 
cerned for  their  eternal  welfare  to  look  after  their 
minds  and  hearts,  and  children  began  to  unbosom 
themselves  to  them,  there  was  brought  about  a 
situation  which  made  the  development  of  the  race 
to  manhood  possible.  Children  now  had  a  chance 
to  aim  at  manhood  with  patterns  of  manhood  be- 
fore their  eyes,  and  those  who  had  the  privilege  of 
opening  their  minds  and  hearts  to  highly  developed 
parents  had  a  chance  to  imbibe  their  spirit  and 
ideals  and  to  grow  up  with  their  guidance  and 
sympathy  toward  real  manhood. 

To  realize  what  this  means  we  have  only  to  re- 
flect upon  what  the  world  to-day  thinks  of  the 
chances  of  its  young  people.  Who  expects  any- 
thing of  the  boy  who  is  growing  up  in  an  environ- 
ment that  furnishes  no  pattern  of  high  manhood 
to  live  by,  no  manly  spirit  to  breathe,  no  manly 
ideals  to  inspire  him,  no  manly  guide  to  help  him 
along  the  way?     And  where  is  the  man  who  does 


76     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

not  believe  that  the  luckiest  boy  in  the  world  is  the 
boy  who  is  on  the  chummiest  of  terms  with  a  good 
father  ? 


Ill 

To  achieve  manhood  a  boy  must  have  a  chance 
to  grow  up  in  intimate,  sympathetic  touch  with  a 
developed  man — either  with  his  father  or  with 
somebody  who  will  take  the  place  of  a  father.  I 
have  heard  of  men  who  grew  up  to  greatness  from 
a  childhood  that  knew  no  home  but  a  barrel  in  the 
alley  and  no  friends  but  an  occasional  dog;  but  I 
have  never  seen  one  nor  have  I  ever  known  any- 
body who  had  seen  one.  Men  have  risen  from 
such  depths  to  great  heights  of  what  the  world 
calls  success,  but  I  have  never  known  one  to 
achieve  high  manhood,  which  is  the  only  true 
greatness.  If  one  will  inquire  into  the  life  of  a 
truly  great  man  who  came  up  from  a  barrel  in  the 
alley,  one  will  find  that  somewhere  in  childhood  or 
early  youth  he  came  into  sympathetic  touch  with  a 
real  man,  and  that  it  was  largely  through  the  in- 
spiration and  guidance  of  this  heaven-sent  friend 
that  he  found  and  climbed  the  path  that  leads  up- 
ward. 

If  a  boy  who  would  become  a  real  man  must 
have  the  benefit  of  sympathetic  contact  with  a 
father  who  has  achieved  real  manhood  (or  a 
mother  or  friend  who  will  take  the  place  of  such  a 
father)  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  if  he  would 


What  Prayer  Meant  to  Jesus  77 

achieve  the  highest  manhood — the  manhood  of  a 
Son  of  God — he  must  have  in  addition  the  benefit 
of  sympathetic  contact  with  the  Father  of  his 
spirit.  This  is  the  great  fundamental  reason  for 
prayer.  This  is  why  Jesus  urged  His  followers  to 
pray.  Prayer  is  a  privilege  which  the  Father  has 
given  His  children  to  help  them  to  grow  to  man- 
hood as  His  sons.  It  was  not  given  us  primarily 
that  we  might  ask  for  the  things  we  need  or  think 
we  need,  but  rather  to  provide  for  greater  needs 
than  we  are  likely  to  think  of — needs  which  we 
never  think  of  until  we  have  really  learned  to  pray. 
Jesus  does  indeed  encourage  us  to  ask  for  things, 
but  He  does  it  just  as  a  wise  and  loving  father  en- 
courages a  timid  child  to  ask  for  things.  A  loving 
father  encourages  his  child  to  come  to  him  about 
his  needs,  not  because  he  wants  to  know  what  he 
needs — ^he  knows  what  the  child  needs  before  he 
asks, — but  because  he  wants  to  bring  about  that 
loving  intimacy  between  his  child  and  himself 
which  is  so  essential  to  his  development  to  real 
manhood.  So  Jesus  encourages  us  to  ask  the 
Father  for  things,  not  that  the  Father  may  know 
what  we  need,  "  for  the  Father  knoweth  what 
things  ye  have  need  of  before  ye  ask  him ;  "  but  be- 
cause He  wants  to  bring  about  that  loving  inti- 
macy between  the  Father  and  His  children  which  is 
so  essential  to  their  development  to  the  highest 
spiritual  manhood.     .     .     . 

I  hope  no  one  will  infer  from  what  I  have  said 


78     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

that  the  question  whether  God  answers  prayer  or 
not  is  of  little  importance.  It  is  of  very  great  im- 
portance. It  is  of  stupendous  importance.  If  the 
Father  had  encouraged  us  to  go  to  Him  about  our 
needs  in  order  that  we  might  thereby  keep  in 
sympathetic  touch  with  Him,  and  then  paid  no 
attention  to  our  requests,  His  plan  would  have  been 
a  failure  from  the  start  and  in  a  little  while  men 
would  have  ceased  to  pray.  It  matters  little  that 
men  believe  in  God  if  they  do  not  believe  in  a 
prayer-answering  God.  Nevertheless  the  fact  re- 
mains that  God  is  something  more  than  a  prayer- 
answering  God,  just  as  a  father  is  something  more 
than  a  family  purse,  and  if  we  regard  prayer  as 
nothing  more  than  the  privilege  of  going  to  God 
for  what  we  want  we  shall  fail  as  miserably  as  does 
the  child  who  thinks  of  his  father  as  nothing  more 
than  the  family  purse.  In -other  words  the  su- 
preme end  of  prayer  is  not  the  supply  of  our  imme- 
diate needs,  but  the  attainment  of  that  harmonious 
and  loving  relationship  zvith  the  Futher  zvhich  is 
essential  to  the  achievement  of  our  high  destiny  as 
His  sons. 

IV 

This  idea  of  prayer  comes  out  very  clearly  in 
the  model  prayer  which  Jesus  gave  His  followers 
and  even  more  clearly  in  that  wonderfully  intimate 
prayer  which  followed  His  memorable  talk  with 
His  disciples  the  night  before  His  death.     In  the 


What  Prayer  Meant  to  Jesus  79 

Lord's  Prayer  the  first  thought  is  of  the  Father — 
the  Father  Himself;  the  Father's  name,  the  Fa- 
ther's kingdom,  the  Father's  will.  These  first 
three  petitions  are  utterances  of  perfect  harmony 
with  the  Father  and  they  help  us  to  get  into  and  to 
preserve  harmonious  touch  with  Him.  Not  until 
we  have  set  His  will  and  interests  foremost  in  our 
hearts  are  we  in  a  position  to  speak  of  our  per- 
sonal needs,  and  these  we  do  not  mention  with 
selfish  motives:  we  ask  these  things — bread,  for- 
giveness, protection  in  temptation  and  deliverance 
from  all  evil,  not  that  we  may  have  an  easy  time, 
but  that  we  may  be  able  to  lend  a  helping  hand 
in  bringing  to  pass  the  things  for  which  we  have 
just  prayed — the  hallowing  of  His  name,  the  es- 
tablishment of  His  kingdom,  the  supremacy  of 
His  will  in  the  earth.  Even  forgiveness,  as  the 
Master  quickly  explained,  could  not  be  asked  for 
selfishly :  that  petition  was  bound  up  with  the  mat- 
ter of  forgiving  those  who  have  sinned  against  us. 
In  His  prayer  uttered  the  night  before  His 
death  we  have  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  as  well 
as  the  most  perfect  expression  of  absolute  selfless- 
ness that  has  come  down  to  us.  It  is  true  that  the 
prayer  begins  with  a  petition  to  the  Father  to 
glorify  His  Son,  but  it  is  plain  that  the  Son  desires 
to  be  glorified  simply  that  He  may  more  perfectly 
glorify  the  Father.  The  first  thought  that  comes 
to  us  as  we  listen  to  His  voice  In  this  prayer  is 
that  here  at  last  is  One  who  wants  nothing  for 


8o     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

Himself.  Even  at  this  supremely  critical  mo- 
ment, when  His  life  is  hanging  by  a  thread — a 
thread  which  He  knows  will  break  on  to-morrow 
— he  wants  nothing  for  Himself.  When  a  man's 
life  is  in  peril  we  don't  expect  him  to  think  of 
others:  we  expect  him  to  think  of  himself.  But 
here  is  one  who  at  the  moment  when  men  are 
most  selfish  and  when  nobody  expects  them  to 
think  of  anybody's  will  but  their  own,  is  so  ab- 
sorbed in  the  Father's  will  that  He  does  not  think 
of  Himself  except  as  a  means  of  furthering  that 
will. 

But  the  utter  selflessness  that  runs  through  this 
prayer  is  hardly  so  wonderful  as  the  loving  har- 
mony with  the  Father  which  pervades  it.  No 
wonder  His  words  fall  upon  our  ears  like  music. 
Here  is  prayer  at  its  highest :  beyond  this  the  Mas- 
ter Himself  could  not  go.  And  this  is  not  all:  it 
is  not  only  the  highest  achievement  in  prayer,  but 
it  is  the  highest  achievement  of  prayer.  When 
prayer  brings  us  into  perfect  harmony  with  the 
Father  it  has  achieved  that  beyond  which  it  can- 
not go.  No  answer  that  praying  men  have  re- 
ceived from  the  Father  has  ever  gone  beyond  that. 

This  then  is  what  prayer  meant  to  Jesus — not 
the  cry  of  a  beggar,  nor  the  business  proposition 
of  a  trader,  but  the  unbosoming  of  oneself  to  one's 
heavenly  Father.  And  not  the  mere  unbosoming 
of  one's  wishes  with  an  eye  to  getting  what  one 
wants,  but  the  unbosoming  of  oneself — the  su- 


What  Prayer  Meant  to  Jesus  8l 

preme  aim  being,  as  I  have  said,  to  bring  about 
and  perpetuate  that  fellowship  between  the  Father 
and  His  children  that  is  essential  to  the  achieve- 
ment of  their  eternal  destiny  as  His  children. 

The  unbosoming  of  oneself !  Somewhere  I  have 
said  that  it  is  as  essential  for  a  man  to  look  up 
into  the  face  of  the  Father  as  it  is  for  a  baby  to 
look  up  into  the  face  of  its  mother.  A  baby  simply 
must  look  up  into  its  mother's  eyes  or  the  eyes  of 
some  one  who  can  take  its  mother's  place;  denied 
this  privilege  it  will  soon  cease  to  live.  Science 
has  taught  us  that  a  little  baby  lives  largely  on  his 
mother's  life;  that  there  is  something  in  her  that 
goes  out  through  her  loving  attentions  that  takes 
hold  of  his  little  life  and  helps  him  along.  So  a 
man  must  look  up  into  the  face  of  the  Father:  de- 
nied this  privilege  he  is  already  dead. 

This  looking  up  into  the  face  of  the  Father  is 
prayer.  Prayer  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  words, 
Jesus  tells  us.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  opening  one's 
lips:  it  is  a  matter  of  opening  one's  heart.  It  is  a 
matter  of  going  to  the  Father  and  unbosoming 
oneself  to  Him:  going  with  all  that  is  in  one's 
heart;  going  with  the  impulses  or  motives  which 
prompt  a  loving,  dutiful  child  to  go  to  his  earthly 
father;  going  under  the  impulse  of  gratitude  to 
tell  Him  how  thankful  we  are:  going  with  our 
burden  of  sin  to  ask  His  forgiveness;  going  with 
our  tangled  problems  to  get  Him  to  untangle  them ; 
going  with  empty  hearts  that  He  may  fill  them ;  go- 


82     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

ing  with  broken  hearts  that  He  may  heal  them ;  go- 
ing with  yearning  hearts — just  to  be  with  Him. 

Just  to  be  with  Him !  There  is  nothing  in  prayer 
beyond  that.  When  we  begin  to  pray  we  go  to 
God  because  we  want  so  many  things;  by  and  by 
we  don't  care  so  much  about  things:  we  want  to 
be  with  Him.  And  that  is  prayer's  cHmax.  I  am 
sure  we  never  pull  so  hard  upon  the  Father's  heart- 
strings as  when  we  go  to  Him  just  to  be  with 
Him^ 


VI 


THE  GROUNDS  UPON  WHICH  JESUS 
RESTED  PRAYER 


THE  pagan  idea  was  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  a  prayer — a  mysterious  power 
or  a  hidden  value — which  if  brought  to 
bear  upon  God  may  attract  Him,  propitiate  Him, 
or  in  some  way  cause  Him  to  change  His  mind, 
and  come  to  the  help  of  the  supplicant.  This  is 
still  the  dominant  idea  in  the  world,  though  in 
many  minds  it  exists  in  a  more  or  less  modified 
form.  Thus  the  popular  notion  to-day  is  that 
the  thing  which  attracts  God  is  not  the  prayer  it- 
self, but  the  faith  that  is  behind  it  and  that  runs  I 
through  it.  But  whether  the  idea  is  found  in  its 
original  or  a  modified  form,  the  ground  upon 
which  it  rests  is  always  something  outside  of  God.  ; 
The  pagan  prays  because  he  has  faith  in  the  power 
or  virtue  of  his  prayers  and  the  paganized  Chris- 
tian (or,  more  accurately,  the  Christianized  pagan) 
prays  because  he  has  faith  in  the  power  of  faith. 
Apparently  a  large  majority  of  Christians  nowa- 
days pray  either  because  they  believe  in  the  power 

83 


84     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

of  prayer  or  because  they  believe  in  the  power  of 
faith. 

Jesus  did  not  beUeve  in  either.  He  did  not  put 
His  faith  either  in  His  prayers  or  in  the  faith  with 
which  He  prayed;  He  put  it  in  the  God  who  an- 
swers prayer.  There  is  nothing  in  His  teachings 
to  indicate  that  He  regarded  a  man's  prayer  as 
having  any  power  or  value  in  itself.  The  magical 
ideas  which  so  many  good  people  think  they  find 
in  His  references  to  faith  and  prayer  do  not  exist 
outside  of  pagan  minds  and  the  minds  of  Chris- 
tians who  have  kept  their  inherited  pagan  ideas 
alive  by  interpreting  the  words  of  Jesus  as  if  they 
were  the  words  of  a  litcralist.  If  we  insist  upon 
taking  His  manifestly  figurative  sayings  literally 
— such  sayings,  for  example,  as  that  about  moun- 
tain-removing faith — ^we  shall  find  in  His  teach- 
ings about  faith  and  prayer  enough  superstition  to 
satisfy  the  most  devout  pagan  heart;  but  if  we  in- 
sist upon  knowing  not  merely  what  He  said,  but 
what  He  intended  His  words  to  mean,  we  shall 
find  His  teachings  as  far  from  superstitious  ideas 
as  the  teachings  of  modern  science  itself. 

When  Jesus  taught  His  disciples  how  to  pray 
He  had  no  thought  of  initiating  them  into  the 
mysteries  of  magic.  He  did  not  regard  even  His 
own  model  prayer  as  having  any  virtue  in  itself. 
Indeed  He  was  careful  to  remind  His  disciples 
that  it  did  not  have  any  virtue  in  itself.  No 
matter  how  often  they  might  repeat  it,  if  they 


Grounds  Upon  Which  Jesus  Rested  Prayer  85 

did  not  pray  in  the  spirit  which  it  required  of  them 
it  would  not  do  them  any  good.  For  instance,  a 
man  who  was  not  wiUing  to  forgive  those  who 
trespassed  against  him  might  pray  "  Forgive  us 
our  trespasses "  until  doomsday  and  he  would 
never  be  forgiven. 

To  Jesus  the  value  of  a  prayer  depended  not 
upon  its  form  or  contents  or  upon  some  mysterious 
power  hidden  in  it,  but  upon  the  grounds  upon 
which  the  supplicant  rested  it,  the  motives  which 
prompted  it,  and  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  offered. 
The  world  had  made  a  failure  of  prayer  largely 
because  it  had  been  resting  its  prayers  upon  wrong 
grounds.  Some  men  prayed  because  they  believed 
in  the  power  of  prayer,  others  because  they  be- 
lieved in  the  power  of  faith.  Some  found  a  ground 
for  prayer  in  the  mercy  of  God;  others  in  God's 
power  to  do  as  He  pleased ;  others  in  the  ability  of 
man  to  move  God  to  come  to  his  help,  either  by  ex- 
citing His  pity,  or  by  appealing  to  His  interests, 
or  by  winning  His  favour,  or  by  teasing  and  worry- 
ing Him.  Jesus  did  not  find  a  sufficient  reason 
for  prayer  in  any  of  these  things.  He  could  not 
rest  prayer  upon  a  magical  power  which  He  well 
knew  did  not  exist.  Nor  could  He  rest  it  upon 
God's  mercy  or  upon  God's  power.  The  fact  that 
God  is  merciful  is  no  assurance  that  He  will  show 
mercy  to  every  man  who  asks  for  it.  So  the  mere 
fact  that  God  has  the  power  to  do  as  He  pleases 
is  no  encouragement  to  pray — certainly  not  to  the 


86     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

man  who  has  no  assurance  that  God  will  use  His 
power  in  his  behalf.  Nor  could  Jesus  find  a  suffi- 
cient reason  for  prayer  in  man's  alleged  ability  to 
move  God.  He  knew  the  Father  too  well  to  be 
attracted  by  the  heathenish  superstition  that  God 
was  a  cold-hearted,  busy,  deeply-absorbed  ruler 
who  needed  to  be  taken  hold  of  and  reminded  of 
certain  things  that  ought  to  be  done  and  then  per- 
suaded to  do  them. 

II 
To  Jesus  there  were  just  two  adequate  grounds 
for  prayer.  One  was  the  ground  that  a  child  has 
for  unbosoming  himself  to  his  father.  The  other 
was  the  ground  that  men  have  for  expecting  a  need 
in  nature  to  be  supplied.  A  child  has  one  good 
and  sufficient  reason  for  going  to  his  father  and 
that  is  the  fact  that  he  is  his  father.  A  farmer 
has  one  good  and  sufficient  reason  for  expecting  a 
plant's  need  to  be  supplied  and  that  is  that  the 
plant  has  been  brought  into  harmony  with  the  law 
that  governs  plant  life  and  has  thereby  come  into 
vital  touch  with  the  sources  of  supply.  According 
to  Jesus  a  man  has  both  of  these  reasons  for  pray- 
ing. He  can  unbosom  himself  to  God  because 
God  IS  his  Father.  And  he  can  look  to  God  to 
supply  his  needs  for  the  additional  reason  that  the 
moment  he  comes  into  harmony  with  God's  will 
or  law  he  is  in  vital  touch  with  the  Supreme  Source 
of  Supply. 


Grounds  Upon  Which  Jesus  Rested  Prayer  87 

Let  us  examine  these  two  grounds.  First,  God 
is  our  Father.  If  a  child  has  sufficient  encourage- 
ment to  go  to  his  father  in  the  fact  that  he  is  his 
father,  surely  we  have  sufficient  encouragement 
to  go  to  God  in  the  fact  that  He  is  our  heavenly 
Father.  If  we  fathers,  with  all  our  limitations 
and  handicaps,  can  usually  do  for  our  children  that 
which  is  wisest  and  best,  surely  we  can  go  to  our 
heavenly  Father  with  full  assurance  that  He  will 
do  for  us  that  which  is  wisest  and  best. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  Jesus  pointed  out  this 
ground  of  prayer  first.  For  myself  I  am  free  to 
admit  that,  knowing  what  I  know  now,  if  I  could 
not  think  of  God  as  the  Father  of  men,  nothing 
could  encourage  me  to  pray.  Millions  of  pagans 
who  have  not  heard  that  God  is  the  father  of  men 
do  pray,  but  if  the  light  of  modern  intelligence 
should  suddenly  burst  upon  them  and  reveal  to 
them  all  that  we  know  except  that  God  is  the 
Father  of  men,  they  would  never  pray  again.  In 
the  light  of  modern  intelligence  none  of  the 
grounds  upon  which  pagans  (or  Christians  who 
are  dominated  by  pagan  ideas)  rest  prayer  appeal 
to  us.  We  may  resort  to  prayer  desperately  on 
almost  any  ground;  but  we  do  not  feel  that  we 
have  a  good  and  sufficient  reason  for  prayer  until 
we  come  face  to  face  with  the  truth  that  God  is 
our  Father.  If  God  is  our  Father  of  course  that 
settles  it.  If  that  isn't  a  sufficient  reason  why  I 
should  pray  there  is  no  sufficient  reason. 


88     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

Jesus  encourages  us  to  pray  by  revealing  God 
to  us  as  our  Father.  Surely  that  is  encourage- 
ment enough.  If  He  is  our  Father  we  may  go  to 
Him,  we  must  go  to  Him,  we  shall  want  to  go  to 
Him.  If  He  is  not  our  Father  I  can  see  no  satis- 
factory reason  for  going  to  Him  at  all ;  but  if  He  is 
our  Father  then  — 

"  Well,"  says  Jesus,  "  just  make  a  self  case  of 
it.  You  are  a  father.  Would  you  deny  your  son 
the  privilege  of  coming  to  you?  And  if  he 
should  come  to  you  would  you  turn  a  deaf  ear 
to  his  petitions?  Would  you  treat  him  cruelly  or 
rudely  or  even  indifferently?  If  he  should  ask  for 
bread  would  you  give  him  a  stone — a  little,  round, 
brown  stone  that  looks  like  bread — to  mock  his 
hunger?  Or  if  he  should  ask  for  a  fish  would  you 
give  him  a  serpent? — something  which,  instead  of 
nourishing  him  would  harm  him?  Perish  the 
thought!  No  father — ^no  human  father — could 
mock  his  hungry  son  or  knowingly  put  into  his 
hands  anything  that  would  hurt  him,  no  matter 
what  he  might  ask  for.  Very  well ;  if  you  feel  that 
way  about  human  fathers — if  you  have  that  much 
confidence  in  your  own  fatherly  heart — is  there 
any  reason  why  you  should  not  go  to  your  heavenly 
Father?  Can  you  conceive  that  you  might  find 
your  heavenly  Father  less  fatherly,  less  loving,  less 
wise  than  you  are?  You  can  trust  a  wise  and 
loving  father  who  has  practically  unlimited  means 
to  do  all  for  his  children  that  his  love  and  wis- 


Grounds  Upon  Which  Jesus  Rested  Prayer   89 

dom  may  prompt  him  to  do.  Can  you  not  trust 
your  heavenly  Father,  who  has  absolutely  unlim- 
ited means,  to  do  all  for  you  that  His  love  and 
wisdom  may  prompt  Him  to  do  ?  " 

III 

But  Jesus  did  not  rest  prayer  upon  the  Father- 
hood of  God  alone.  The  ground  of  Fatherhood 
would  satisfy  His  Oriental  audience  (no  Oriental 
audience  could  fail  to  appreciate  and  respond  to 
the  appeal  of  fatherhood),  and  it  would  satisfy  all 
Occidentals  who  had  entered  into  the  experience 
of  fatherhood  and  who  had  fathomed  the  hearts 
of  their  own  fathers;  but  there  were  others.  And 
in  the  ages  to  come  there  would  be  many  more.  In 
the  ages  to  come  there  would  be  millions  of  cold, 
literal  Occidentals,  who  could  not  associate  reality 
with  sentiment,  to  whom  the  appeal  of  fatherhood 
would  mean  nothing  but  sentiment,  and  whose 
minds  could  not  be  satisfied  with  anything  less 
than  scientific  truth,  and  these  would  need  another 
and  a  quite  different  ground.  I  do  not  mean  that 
Jesus  had  the  modern  Western  mind  in  view  when 
He  pointed  to  this  second  ground,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  this  second  ground  is  as  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  requirement  of  the  modern  Western 
mind  as  the  first  ground  was  to  the  ancient  Oriental 
mind. 

It  was  long  before  the  days  of  science,  but  when 
Jesus  said  to  His  followers,  "If  ye  abide  in  me, 


90     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

and  my  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye 
will  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you,"  He  uttered  a 
truth  that  was  and  is  as  scientific  as  any  estab- 
lished fact  in  modern  biology.  It  is  true  that  He 
did  not  present  it  in  a  scientific  setting  (scientific 
settings  had  not  yet  been  invented),  and  for  this 
reason  few  scientists  have  ever  stumbled  upon  it, 
but  one  only  needs  to  translate  it  into  modern 
terms  to  recognize  its  scientific  character.  Trans- 
lated into  modern  terms  this  statement  rests  upon 
the  established  scientific  fact  that  all  supplies  come 
through  harmony  with  law.  All  things — plants, 
birds,  trees,  men — ^have  their  needs  supplied  just 
to  the  extent  to  which  they  harmonize  with  law. 
If  every  part  of  a  plant  comes  perfectly  into  line 
with  the  law  of  its  being,  every  part  of  it  is  open 
to  the  sources  of  supply  and  its  needs  will  be  per- 
fectly met.  So  with  everything  else  in  the  material 
world.  When  Jesus  came  the  world  had  not  yet 
made  this  discovery,  though  it  had  come  to  the 
fringes  of  it;  but  Jesus  had  gone  beyond  it:  He 
had  discovered  that  this  was  true  of  the  world  of 
spirit.  Whether  His  wonderfully  discerning  mind 
had  given  any  thought  to  the  scientific  fact  that 
physical  supplies  come  through  harmony  with 
physical  law  or  not  w^e  do  not  know ;  but  it  is  clear 
that  this  remarkable  statement  rests  upon  the 
equally  scientific  fact  that  the  supplies  that  man  as 
a  spiritual  being  needs  come  through  harmony 
with  God's  spiritual  law. 


Grounds  Upon  Which  Jesus  Rested  Prayer  91 

"  What  you  need  for  the  fulfillment  of  your  mis- 
sion in  this  world,"  He  is  here  saying  to  His  dis- 
ciples, "  will  come  to  you  just  to  the  extent  to 
which  you  harmonize  with  the  Divine  will  or  law, 
the  Supreme  Source  of  Supply.  My  whole  being 
is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  Father's  will.  If 
you  will  abide  in  me  so  that  my  words  or  will  may 
abide  in  you — if  you  will  bring  your  whole  being 
into  line  with  me — with  the  Father — so  that  every 
part  will  harmonize  with  the  Father's  will  or  law — 
as  a  man  presses  a  crooked  stick  up  against  a 
straight  wall  until  every  part  of  the  stick  is  in  per- 
fect line  with  it,  then  you  will  be  in  vital  communi- 
cation with  the  Supreme  Source  of  Supply,  just  as 
a  branch  of  a  vine  is  in  vital  communication 
with  the  supplies  of  the  vine;  and  thus,  hav- 
ing no  will  but  the  Father's,  all  that  you  may  de- 
sire for  the  fulfillment  of  your  mission  as  His  chil- 
dren will  be  supplied." 

IV 

Here  then  are  the  two  grounds  upon  which 
prayer  rests  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  To  His 
mind  there  are  just  two  good  and  sufficient  reasons 
why  men  should  pray:  one  is  that  God  is  the 
Father  of  men  and  the  other  is  that  supplies  come 
through  harmony  with  God's  will  or  law.  The 
first  ground  appeals  largely  to  the  heart;  the  sec- 
ond appeals  to  the  mind:  when  we  put  them  to- 
gether  I   know   of  nothing  more   convincing  or 


92     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

encouraging.  There  is  nothing  unreasonable  in 
them:  the  only  unreasonable  thing  that  they  sug- 
gest to  us  is  the  childish  attitude  which  a  large 
part  of  the  human  race  still  assumes  toward  them. 
The  scientific  agnostic  still  hoots  at  the  appeal  of 
Fatherhood  as  sentimental  nonsense,  while  mil- 
lions of  Christians  still  proceed  with  their  prayers 
on  the  pagan  assumption  that  the  way  to  get  into 
harmony  with  God's  will  is  to  get  Him  to  fall  in 
with  theirs.  If  a  tree  that  had  been  torn  up  by  the 
roots  should  cry  to  heaven  for  food  to  keep  it 
from  dying  we  should  laugh  at  it.  We  should  say 
that  even  a  wooden-head  should  know  that  so  long 
as  a  tree  is  out  of  harmony  with  the  law  that  gov- 
erns its  growth  it  will  never  have  its  needs  sup- 
plied. What  that  tree  needs  to  do  is  to  get  back  to 
its  place  and  fall  into  harmony  with  law.  And  yet 
when  we  are  in  need,  instead  of  going  to  God  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  into  harmony  with  Him  and 
His  law,  we  go  with  the  hope  of  inducing  Him  to 
come  down  and  fall  in  with  us  and  our  wishes. 

I  imagine  that  this  is  about  the  hardest  truth 
to  learn  that  the  human  race  has  ever  run  against. 
Down  to  the  time  of  Jesus  nobody  seems  to  have 
grasped  it  except  a  little  handful  of  illumined  He- 
brews and  an  isolated  seeker  after  God  here  and 
there  among  heathen  peoples.  All  through  the 
ages  the  race  as  a  whole  had  spent  its  hours  of 
prayer  in  more  or  less  desperate  efforts  to  induce 
God  to  drop  His  affairs  and  come  down  and  har- 


Grounds  Upon  Which  Jesus  Rested  Prayer  93 

monize  His  will  with  theirs.  It  seemed  never  to 
have  occurred  to  anybody  but  a  few  prophets  and 
saints  that  God  might  prefer  that  they  should  drop 
their  affairs  and  try  to  harmonize  their  will  with 
His.  And  now  after  nearly  two  thousand  years 
of  the  Master's  teachings  the  greater  part  of  the 
race  is  still  falling  into  the  same  old  error.  In- 
stead of  pressing  our  poor  crooked  selves  up 
against  the  straight  line  of  His  will  that  we  may 
be  in  perfect  harmony  with  Him,  and  thus  be  in 
vital  communication  with  our  Source  of  Supply, 
we  are  trying  in  our  prayers  to  induce  Him  to 
bend  the  straight  line  of  His  will  and  make  it 
harmonize  with  us! 


VII 

HARMONY  WITH  GOD 

I 

IF  I  have  correctly  stated  the  view  of  Jesus  it  is 
plain  that  the  popular  conception  of  prayer  is 
largely  the  result  of  misplaced  emphasis.  Un- 
der the  influence  of  our  inherited  pagan  ideas  and 
the  misinterpretations  of  Jesus  which  our  pagan 
tendencies  have  encouraged,  we  have  been  placing 
the  emphasis  upon  what  prayer  brings  to  us  in- 
stead of  upon  what  prayer  brings  about  in  us.  We 
have  been  thinking  of  prayer  as  something  that 
brings  good  down  to  us  rather  than  as  something 
that  develops  good  within  us.  We  have  been  pray- 
ing to  bring  God  into  harmony  with  us  so  that 
He  will  give  us  what  we  want,  rather  than  to  bring 
ourselves  into  harmony  with  God  so  that  we  may 
give  Him  what  He  wants.  In  a  word  we  have 
been  placing  the  emphasis  upon  prayer's  answer 
— its  immediate  purpose — instead  of  upon  its  great 
end,  the  attainment  of  that  perfect  oneness  with 
God,  in  comparison  with  which  an  immediate  an- 
swer to  prayer  is  merely  incidental. 
Jesus  wants  us  to  ask  that  we  may  receive,  but 
94 


Harmony  With  God  95* 

evidently  He  is  far  more  anxious  that  we  should 
receive  the  great  benefits  of  communion  with  the 
Father  than  the  things  we  usually  ask  the  Father 
for.  A  wise  father  wants  his  son  to  ask  of  him 
that  he  may  receive,  but  what  he  is  chiefly  con- 
cerned about  is  the  far  greater  benefit  that  will 
come  to  the  boy  when  he  has  gotten  into  the  habit 
of  freely  going  to  him  about  his  wants.  Nothing 
that  a  boy  is  likely  to  ask  of  his  father  is  worth  a 
fraction  of  what  he  will  receive  when,  by  unbos- 
oming himself  to  his  father,  he  has  come  into  per- 
fect harmony  with  him. 

The  supreme  end  of  prayer,  I  repeat,  is  not  its 
answer,  but  harmony  with  the  Father. 

Let  us  think  a  little  while  about  this  matter.  I 
have  said  somewhere  that  the  secret  of  a  perfect 
rose  is  perfect  harmony  with  law.  Some  good 
people  give  the  credit  to  a  Burbank.  But  there 
were  a  few  perfect  roses  in  the  world  long  before 
our  experts  came  around.  Unquestionably  the 
Burbanks  have  helped,  for  perfect  roses  are  now 
plentiful ;  but  if  the  average  rose  had  been  as  self- 
willed  as  the  average  man,  we  would  not  have  had 
many  more  perfect  roses  in  the  world  last  June 
than  we  had  perfect  people,  Burbanks  or  no  Bur- 
banks. 

The  secret  of  every  perfect  rose  is  perfect  har- 
mony with  law.  A  rose  achieves  its  highest  des- 
tiny and  perfectly  fulfills  Its  mission  only  when  it 
falls  into  perfect  harmony  with  the  will  of  the 


96     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

Creator  of  roses,  as  expressed  in  the  laws  of  na- 
ture. Harmony  with  law  is  the  thing  that  gives 
it  its  chance.  Perfect  harmony  with  law  brings 
every  part  of  its  being  into  vital  contact  with  an 
environment  that  perfectly  meets  its  needs.  It 
makes  available  everything  it  must  have  to  achieve 
its  destiny.  Not  everything  it  must  have  to  satisfy 
its  whims,  but  everything  it  must  have  to  serve  the 
will  of  the  Creator  of  roses.  The  moment  it  falls 
into  perfect  harmony  with  law.  His  law,  every- 
thing that  the  Creator  of  roses  has  that  a  rose 
needs  becomes  available  for  its  use.  At  that  mo- 
ment it  may  ask  what  it  will  and  it  shall  be  done 
unto  it. 

What  a  Burbank  does  is  to  help  a  rose  get  into 
perfect  line  with  the  will  of  the  Creator  of  roses, 
that  every  pore  of  its  being  may  be  open  to  and  in 
touch  with  the  Creator's  sources  of  supply. 

The  secret  of  a  developed  man — a  man  who  has 
reached  the  heights  of  spiritual  vision  and  power 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God — is  the  secret  of  the  per- 
fect rose.  It  is  harmony  with  God's  will  that  gives 
God's  creatures  a  chance  to  achieve  the  end  for 
which  God  designed  them ;  and  this  is  true  of  all  of 
God's  creatures,  w^hether  they  are  roses  or  cab- 
bages, stars  or  men.  If  the  stars  are  fulfilling 
their  mission  better  than  men,  it  is  because  they 
are  harmonizing  with  law  better  than  men.  Every- 
thing in  creation  that  a  star  must  have  to  fulfill  its 
mission  is  available  whenever  it  needs  it.     And 


Harmony  With  God  97 

God  is  not  partial  to  stars.  If  I  should  this  mo- 
ment begin  to  harmonize  with  God's  will  as  com- 
pletely as  a  star,  all  the  power  and  resources  of 
God  that  I  need  to  become  what  He  wants  me  to 
become  and  to  do  what  He  wants  me  to  do  would 
become  available  for  my  use.  If  I  should  thus 
become  one  with  God  I  might  ask  what  I  would 
and  it  would  be  done  unto  me.  If  God  should  call 
me  to  do  as  wonderful  a  thing  as  Gideon  of  old 
did,  I  should  have  the  courage  and  power  to  do  it. 

The  trouble  with  us  is  that  we  want  to  be  ex-ff 
ceptions  to  God's  rule.  We  know  that  we  must 
harmonize  with  God's  will  as  roses  do  and  as  stars 
do,  but  we  don't  want  to  be  compelled  to  harmo- 
nize in  the  way  they  do.  We  don't  want  to  have  to 
go  to  God  and  fall  in  with  His  wishes  and  plans, 
as  they  have  to  do ;  we  want  God  to  come  down  to 
us  and  fall  in  with  our  wishes  and  plans.  This  is 
the  secret  of  most  of  our  distressing  failures  in 
prayer.  This  is  the  secret  of  our  lack  of  power. 
This  explains  why  it  is  that  when  thirty  thousand 
people  volunteer  for  God's  army  most  of  them  are 
glad  of  a  chance  to  run  back  home  before  the 
fighting  begins.  Most  of  us  don't  go  to  God  to 
fall  in  with  His  wishes  and  plans;  we  go  to  per- 
suade Him  to  fall  in  with  our  wishes  and  plans. 

And  yet  we  say  we  don't  understand  how  it  is. 
We  don't  understand  why  God  should  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  our  prayers  when  we  have  prayed  as  ear- 
nestly as  anybody  ever  did ! 


98     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

II 

If  I  want  the  power  to  do  the  work  God  has 
given  me  to  do,  I  can  get  it  by  bringing  my  whole 
being  in  line  with  His  will.  This  will  bring  me  in 
touch  with  the  divine  sources  of  supply  and  with 
every  pore  of  my  being  open  to  receive  what  He 
has  in  store  for  me.  In  other  words,  I  shall  be- 
come one  with  Him,  as  the  branch  is  one  with  the 
vine,  and  His  life  and  power  will  begin  to  flow 
through  me. 

It  is  all  so  simple ;  and  yet  how  many  of  us  are 
standing  before  our  tasks  trembling  from  sheer 
weakness.    What  is  the  trouble  ? 

There  is  but  one  answer.  We  are  self-willed 
children  and  we  don't  want  to  be  one  with  Cod; 
we  want  Him  to  be  one  with  us. 

It  takes  a  God-reinforced  man  to  win  a  great 
victory  for  God,  but  this  does  not  mean  that  if 
we  would  win  we  must  "  get  God  on  our  side," 
as  we  so  often  say ;  it  means  that  we  must  get  on 
God's  side.  That  is  what  Gideon  did  and  that  is 
what  all  of  God's  successful  warriors  and  work- 
ers have  had  to  do.  Perhaps  we  would  not  re- 
gard Gideon  as  a  very  pious  man  if  he  were  living 
among  us  to-day,  but  in  the  story  we  have  of  him 
we  do  not  find  him  guilty  of  the  impiety  that  has 
paralyzed  so  many  modern  Christians,  the  impiety 
of  trying  to  persuade  God  to  make  His  will  and 
plans  conform  to  man's  wishes.  If  we  want  God's 
power  we  must  get  in  line  with  Him.    Here  is  the 


Harmony  With  God  99 

current  of  His  will  running  in  a  straight  line  by 
me.  All  of  His  resources  are  connected  with  this 
current.  As  I  have  said,  if  I  will  bring  myself  in 
line  with  God's  will  as  a  man  would  lay  a  crooked 
stick  against  a  straight  wall  and  make  the  stick 
conform  to  it — if  I  will  so  conform  to  Him  that 
my  mind,  my  heart,  every  part  of  my  being  will 
lie  close  along  the  line  of  His  will, — then  I  shall 
become  one  with  Him  and  all  of  His  resources  to 
the  extent  of  my  needs  will  be  available^ for  my 

use.  C""^" 

But  how  can  a  poor  self-willed  creature  do  such 
a  thing?  He  cannot  do  it  without  help.  Gideon 
did  not  do  it  without  help.  Two  things  had  to  be 
done  for  him.  God  had  to  reveal  His  will  to  him 
so  that  he  could  see  how  to  get  in  line  with  it,  and 
He  had  to  give  him  such  a  revelation  of  Himself 
that  he  would  want  to  get  in  line  with  it  and  would 
be  inspired  and  strengthened  to  get  in  line  with 
it.  God  does  these  two  things  for  men  to-day  just 
as  He  did  them  for  His  heroes  in  Old  Testament 
days.  Not  indeed  in  the  same  spectacular  way, 
but  in  a  more  wonderful  way.  He  has  sent  His 
Son  not  only  to  show  us  the  Father's  will,  but  to 
show  us  the  Father  Himself.  If  I  will  go  to  the 
Son,  if  I  will  learn  the  story  of  His  life,  if  I  will 
linger  over  His  words,  if  I  will  seek  His  face  in 
prayer,  if  I  will  give  myself  to  Him  as  my  Saviour 
and  Lord  and  seek  to  follow  in  His  footsteps, 
walking  as  He  walks,  serving  as  He  serves,  the 


lOO    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

Father's  will  will  daily  become  clearer  to  me  and 
sooner  or  later  the  Father  Himself  will  becom.e  so 
real  to  me  that  I  will  just  have  to  fall  on  my  face 
before  Him.  When  we  become  really  conscious 
of  God  we  are  simply  bound  to  fall  at  His  feet. 
And  as  we  fall  it  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  to  drop  our  own  wishes  and  plans.  And  so 
long  as  we  remain  at  His  feet  we  don't  think  of 
taking  them  up  again.  We  only  wonder  how  we 
managed  to  hold  on  to  them  so  long. 

How  cheap  these  precious  baubles  of  ours,  these 
wishes  and  plans  of  ours,  appear  when  once  we 
become  one  with  God ! 


VIII 

WAS  JESUS  UNSCIENTIFIC? 

I 

MATERIALISTIC  scientists  tell  us  that 
they  do  not  regard  Christianity  seri- 
ously because  it  is  unscientific.  They 
are  sure  it  is  unscientific  because  it  rests  upon  be- 
lief in  the  supernatural,  which  of  course  is  un- 
scientific. And  they  are  sure  that  belief  in  the 
supernatural  is  unscientific  because  in  their  minds 
supernatural  is  the  same  as  unnatural  or  anti- 
natural,  which,  as  everybody  knows,  is  unscientific. 
All  this,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  very  disconcert- 
ing and  might  lead  to  something  serious  but  for 
our  saving  grace  of  humour,  which  usually  re- 
minds us  before  we  have  gone  too  far  that  even 
scientists  have  been  known  to  make  funny  mis- 
takes. Even  scientists  have  been  known  to  in- 
dulge in  illusions,  to  mistake  assumptions  for 
proof,  and  even  to  fall  into  that  commonest  of 
blunders  current  in  polite  society — the  blunder  of 
confusing  the  opinions  which  one  acquired  ready- 
made  at  college  with  the  opinions  which  he  ac- 
tually thought  out  for  himself  in  maturer  years. 

lOI 


102    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

Even  scientists  have  been  known  to  imagine  that 
their  opinions  of  religion,  for  instance,  were 
formed  after  years  of  patient  research  and 
thought,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  had  not 
given  reHgion  a  serious  thought  since  the  day 
they  acquired  at  college  the  ready-made  opinion 
that  Christianity  is  unscientific  and  therefore  not 
worthy  of  a  serious  thought. 

When  my  learned  friend,  the  professor  of 
biology,  prefaces  his  announcement  of  an  opinion 
about  a  matter  of  science  with  the  statement  that 
it  is  the  result  of  long  years  of  careful  research 
and  thought,  I  have  no  difficulty  in  accepting  his 
assurance  as  both  sincere  and  truthful;  but  when 
he  asks  his  audience  to  believe  that  an  opinion 
which  he  is  about  to  deliver  concerning  a  matter  of 
religion  was  reached  in  the  same  way,  I  cannot 
feel  sure  of  anything  except  his  sincerity.  His 
statement  may  be  true  as  well  as  sincere,  but  with 
my  recollection  of  my  college  days  before  me  I  find 
it  difficult  to  avoid  the  suspicion  that  he  acquired 
his  religious  opinions  as  most  intelligent  unbe- 
lievers have  acquired  theirs — in  the  Sophomore 
year  and  therefore  before  and  not  after  those  im- 
pressive long  years  of  careful  research  and 
thought.  This  suspicion,  I  admit,  may  not  be  very 
charitable,  but  in  view  of  the  frank  admission  of 
my  unbelieving  friend  that  he  has  not  regarded 
religion  seriously  since  he  was  at  college,  it  might 
be  worse. 


Was  Jesus  Unscientific?  103 

II 

A  boy  goes  to  college  with  a  religious  faith 
which  he  supposes  to  be  the  Christian  faith,  and  in 
the  fierce  light  of  the  lecture  hall  and  the  labora- 
tory soon  discovers  that  it  is  unscientific.  And  to 
a  young  fellow  who  has  yet  to  appreciate  the  wis- 
dom of  Davy  Crockett's  advice  to  be  sure  you  are 
right  and  then  go  ahead,  that  is  the  same  as  saying 
that  the  teachings  of  Jesus  are  unscientific.  And 
so  the  matter  is  settled  then  and  there.  Not  once 
does  he  pause  to  ask  whether  he  was  sure  he  was 
right  before  he  went  ahead — whether  the  faith 
which  he  brought  to  college  was  really  the  Chris- 
tian faith  or  only  a  patch-quilt  of  Christian  and 
pagan  ideas  which  he  had  been  told  was  the  Chris- 
tian faith. 

Undoubtedly  many  of  the  religious  beliefs 
which  the  average  boy  carries  to  college  are  un- 
scientific. Perhaps  two-thirds  of  his  ideas  of 
prayer  are  unscientific.  But  as  these  unscientific 
ideas  are  all  either  pagan  or  misinterpretations  of 
the  teachings  of  Jesus,  it  hardly  seems  quite  fair 
to  point  to  them  as  evidences  that  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  are  unscientific.  The  truth  is,  the  current 
notion  that  Christianity  is  unscientific  did  not  come 
from  the  exposure  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  to  the 
light  of  science ;  it  came  from  the  exposure  of  cer- 
tain supposed  teachings  of  Jesus  to  the  light  of 
science.  The  bad  repute  which  the  Christian  faith 
has  had  the  misfortune  to  acquire  among  materi- 


104    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

alistic  scientists  is  nothing  more  than  the  result  of 
keeping  bad  company.  Unquestionably  the  pagan 
ideas  with  which  the  Christian  faith  is  associated 
in  the  popular  mind  are  unscientific.  Nothing,  for 
example,  could  be  more  unscientific  than  the  pagan 
conception  of  prayer.  The  pagan  goes  to  God  with 
the  idea  that  God's  will  can  be  changed  if  the  wor- 
shipper can  only  find  the  secret  of  turning  the 
"  trick."  He  believes  that  if  sufficient  induce- 
ments are  offered,  God  will  drop  His  purpose  and 
plans  and  fall  in  with  the  supplicant's  purpose  and 
plans.  He  does  not  know  much  about  God's  laws, 
but  that,  to  his  mind,  is  of  no  importance:  if  God 
can  be  induced  to  side  with  him  he  will  not  mind 
smashing  all  His  laws  if  they  should  be  in  his 
way. 

Nothing  could  be  more  unscientific  than  the  idea 
that  the  way  to  get  what  we  need  is  to  induce  God 
to  drop  His  will  and  plans  and  come  down  and  fall 
in  with  ours.  But  this  is  paganism,  not  Christian- 
ity. So  far  from  being  Christ's  teaching  it  is  ex- 
actly the  opposite  of  His  teaching.  Christ  never 
taught  anything  that  was  unscientific.  He  be- 
lieved in  the  supernatural,  but  He  did  not  believe 
in  the  unnatural  or  anti-natural.  On  the  contrary 
He  was  the  first  great  religious  teacher  to  make 
effective  protest  against  what  we  would  call  now- 
adays the  unscientific  character  of  popular  religious 
beliefs. 

Other  teachers  had  protested  against  credulity  as 


Was  Jesus  Unscientific  ?  105 

a  foundation  for  religion,  but  it  was  left  to  Jesus 
to  offer  a  scientific  foundation  to  take  its  place. 
He  offered  faith,  which  when  one  comes  to  think 
of  it,  is  as  thoroughly  scientific  as  credulity  is  un- 
scientific. Moreover,  He  was  the  first  teacher  to 
rest  particular  religious  beliefs  upon  what  we 
would  call  scientific  grounds.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  whole  range  of  modern  science  more  scientific 
than  the  second  ground  upon  which  He  rested  His 
doctrine  of  prayer. 

Ill 

When  I  pray  as  a  pagan — and  most  of  us  pray 
as  pagans  at  one  time  or  another — I  want  God  to 
drop  His  will  or  law  and  help  me  to  have  my  way. 
I  try  to  get  Him  on  my  side.  The  materialist  says 
that  this  is  absurd,  and  he  is  right.  But  when  I 
pray  as  a  Christian  I  don't  want  God  to  drop  His 
will  or  law.  I  know  that  all  of  God's  supplies 
come  through  His  will  or  law,  and  in  praying,  in- 
stead of  asking  Him  to  violate  His  law,  I  try  to  get 
in  line  with  it  so  that  I  can  make  connection  with 
the  channel  of  His  supplies  and  thus  get  the  full 
benefit  of  His  law.  This  the  materialist  seems 
never  to  have  heard  of  or  he  would  have  to  admit 
that  Christian  prayer  is  as  scientific  as  a  law  of 
nature.  He  would  have  to  admit  that  it  is  as 
scientific  as  the  law  of  prayer  which  runs  through 
nature. 

To  repeat  in  substance  what  I  have  said  before, 


lo6    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

all  the  supplies  which  God  has  prepared  for  His 
creatures  come  through  His  will  or  law,  and 
whether  we  are  plants,  animals  or  men  they  will 
reach  us  according  to  our  needs  if  we  are  in  line 
with  His  will  or  law.  If  a  tree  will  stay  where  it 
belongs,  in  perfect  harmony  with  law,  every  cry  of 
need  that  comes  from  it  down  to  its  very  roots  will 
be  answered.  And  the  same  is  true  of  a  man. 
The  trouble  with  us  is  that  we  are  forever  pulling 
ourselves  away  from  where  we  belong,  and  in 
breaking  away  from  God's  will  we  break  connec- 
tion with  His  channels  of  supply.  An  uprooted 
tree  may  cry  for  help  until  it  rots  and  it  will  not 
get  it  unless  it  gets  back  into  its  place  and  into 
harmony  with  law.  So  a  man  who  has  pulled 
himself  away  from  God's  will  may  cry  for  help  till 
doomsday  and  his  prayers  will  not  be  answered 
until  he  goes  back  to  where  he  belongs.  Fortu- 
nately God  has  provided  a  way  for  an  uprooted 
man  to  get  back — something  He  has  not  done  for 
uprooted  trees. 

The  strange  thing  about  the  materialist  is  that 
he  can  see  the  law  of  prayer  running  through  the 
life  of  a  plant  or  animal,  but  cannot  see  it  running 
through  the  life  of  a  man.  There  is  nothing  he 
believes  in  more  enthusiastically  than  the  law  of 
prayer  in  nature.  He  knows  that  the  whole  proc- 
ess of  evolution  rests  upon  it.  When  an  eyeless 
animal  in  the  course  of  its  development  comes  out 
of  the  darkness  and  begins  to  live  in  the  light,  it 


Was  Jesus  Unscientific  ?  107 

must  have  eyes;  it  is  bound  to  have  eyes,  and  in 
response  to  its  unconscious  cry  of  need  the  eyes 
come.  Nobody  knows  how  they  come:  it  looks  as 
if  nature  has  to  violate  its  laws  to  make  them  come ; 
but  neither  the  materialist  nor  the  Christian  will 
hear  to  such  a  thing:  whatever  the  appearances, 
nobody  believes  that  nature  violates  its  laws.  Why 
is  it  that  a  materialist  can  believe  that  the  Creator 
of  the  universe  has  so  arranged  nature  that  the  un- 
conscious prayer  of  an  eyeless  animal  for  eyes  can 
be  answered  in  accordance  with  law,  and  yet  can- 
not believe  that  a  cry  of  need  from  a  human  being 
can  be  answered  without  violating  law?  Why 
should  God  do  more  for  an  animal  than  for  a  man  ? 
Why  is  it  unreasonable  to  believe  that  God  has  so 
arranged  the  universe  that  when  a  human  being 
falls  in  line  with  His  will  he  makes  connection  with 
heaven's  sources  of  supply,  so  that  if  he  ask  what 
he  will  it  shall  be  done  unto  him?  If  I  accept 
God's  will  as  my  own,  whatever  my  lips  may  say, 
my  heart  will  ask  only  for  what  He  wants  done: 
why  should  it  be  impossible  for  Him  to  do  what 
He  wants  done  without  violating  His  own  laws  ? 

I  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  there  is  no  differ- 
ence between  God's  provision  for  answering  men's 
conscious  prayers  and  His  provision  for  answering 
the  unconscious  prayers  of  animals,  but  I  do  Insist 
that  it  is  foolish  to  say  that  He  can  answer  the 
prayers  of  animals  in  accordance  with  law,  but 
cannot  answer  the  prayers  of  men  without  violat- 


lo8    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  *? 

ing  law.  It  is  true  that  we  Christians  insist  that 
many  answers  to  prayer  are  supernatural,  but  that 
does  not  mean  that  they  are  anti-natural:  it  only 
means  that  many  prayers  are  answered  in  accord- 
ance with  laws  that  are  either  beyond  nature  or  be- 
yond anything  that  we  know  of  nature.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  assume  that  in  order  to  answer  prayer 
God  must  do  something  contrary  to  nature;  it  is 
only  necessary  to  assume  that  there  are  some  ar- 
rangements in  the  machinery  of  the  universe  which 
God  knows  about  that  we  don't. 

Let  me  sum  up  what  I  have  said  in  a  word.  Our 
pagan  ancestors  thought  that  to  have  their  needs 
supplied  they  must  persuade  God  to  drop  His  way 
and  fall  in  with  their  way.  Jesus  taught  that  if 
men  would  have  their  needs  supplied  they  must 
drop  their  way  and  fall  in  with  God's  way.  The 
pagan  that  is  in  us  is  always  seeking  to  get  God  on 
our  side.  The  Christian  that  is  in  us  is  always  try- 
ing to  get  on  God's  side. 


IX 

HOW  DOES  GOD  ANSWER  PRAYER? 

I 

THE  ancient  world  was  not  harassed  with 
perplexing  questions  about  prayer.  It 
did  not  doubt  the  ability  of  God  to  an- 
swer prayer,  and  apparently  it  was  not  concerned 
to  know  how  He  did  it.  People  believed  that  He 
could  answer  their  prayers  if  He  felt  like  it  and 
their  only  problem  was  to  make  Him  to  feel  like  it. 
In  other  words  they  went  to  God  just  as  they 
went  to  their  kings.  In  those  simple  days  kings 
were  despots,  and  when  a  subject  approached  his 
sovereign  his  only  concern  was  to  win  his  favour. 
If  he  could  win  his  favour  he  could  get  what  he 
wished,  for  a  king  could  do  as  he  pleased.  A  king 
was  not  bound  by  any  law,  either  of  God  or  man. 
He  was  under  no  obligations.  He  did  not  have  to 
recognize  anybody's  rights ;  he  did  not  have  to  keep 
his  promises;  he  was  not  even  bound  by  the  de- 
mands of  his  own  moral  nature.  A  king  could  do 
no  wrong.  If  he  chose  to  turn  a  river  out  of  its 
course  to  gratify  a  favourite  subject,  he  would  do 
it  regardless  of  consequences.  If  it  resulted  in 
109 


1  lo     What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

destroying  the  farms  of  a  thousand  other  subjects, 
it  was  nobody's  business  but  his  own. 

Praying  to  a  king  was  a  very  simple  matter  in 
those  days  and  people  prayed  to  God  just  as  they 
prayed  to  their  king.  It  never  occurred  to  them 
that  God  might  not  be  a  despot.  Even  among  the 
ancient  Hebrews  He  was  approached  as  a  despot. 
They  thought  of  Him  as  a  good,  kindly  disposed 
despot,  but  still  a  despot.  Aside  from  a  few  di- 
vinely illumined  men  it  never  occurred  to  anybody 
in  those  days  that  God  might  be  a  being  with  obli- 
gations; that  He  might  be  bound  by  the  demands 
of  His  own  moral  nature;  that  He  might  have  a 
will  and  purpose  which  would  not  allow  Him  to 
follow  a  whim  or  caprice ;  that  He  might  be  under 
a  moral  compulsion  to  keep  His  promises,  to  stand 
for  justice  and  truth,  to  act  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  His  wisdom  and  love. 

But  times  have  changed.  The  world  has  long 
since  ceased  to  recognize  the  divine  right  of  kings 
to  do  as  they  please,  and  it  has  come  to  see  that 
even  God  Himself  can  do  as  He  pleases  only  be- 
cause He  pleases  to  do  right.  And  now  that  we 
can  no  longer  approach  God  as  a  despot  prayer  has 
ceased  to  be  a  simple  problem.  In  the  simplest  of 
prayers  there  are  many  questions  involved  and  in 
many  cases  it  is  a  very  complex  problem.  To  those 
who  have  learned  that  God  does  not  answer  prayer 
as  a  despot  and  have  not  gone  further,  it  is  a  hope- 
less problem.     This  is  one  secret  of  the  present 


How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer  ?       1 1 1 

pathetic  attitude  of  so  many  good  men  of  scientific 
training:  they  have  learned  from  science  that  if 
there  is  a  God  He  cannot  be  a  despot — that  He 
cannot  answer  prayer  without  regard  to  the  de- 
mands of  His  nature — but  they  have  not  gone 
further  and  learned  from  Christ  how  He  does  an- 
swer prayer. 

II 

According  to  the  ancient  teaching — the  pagan 
teaching — God  acts  solely  according  to  His  pleas- 
ure. According  to  science  and  human  experience 
this  is  impossible.  Science  says  that  if  there  is  a 
God  He  must  act  according  to  the  demands  of  His 
own  essential  nature  and  not  on  whim  or  impulse. 
Human  experience  says  the  same  thing.  What 
did  Jesus  say  ?  If  He  had  never  uttered  a  word  on 
the  subject  it  would  be  easy  to  guess  where  He 
stood,  for  He  was  always  against  paganism.  But 
He  did  utter  a  word  on  the  subject  and  He  said 
what  science  and  human  experience  have  said,  only 
He  went  further.  He  revealed  what  God's  essen- 
tial nature  was.  God  is  an  infinitely  good,  wise 
and  loving  Father,  and  He  answers  the  prayers  of 
men,  not  on  whim  or  impulse,  as  the  despots  of  old 
answered  their  subjects,  but  as  we  who  are  fathers 
would  answer  our  children  if  we  had  unlimited 
power  and  were  infinite  in  goodness,  wisdom  and 
love.  God  cannot  act  on  Impulse,  says  science,  for 
He  is  necessarily  bound  by  His  own  nature.     And 


1 12    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

to  this  human  experience  agrees.  God  cannot  act 
on  impulse,  said  Jesus,  because  He  is  our  Father 
and  is  bound  by  the  obUgations  of  Fatherhood.  If 
God  was  a  despot  we  would  have  little  encourage- 
ment to  pray ;  but  being  a  Father,  says  Jesus,  there 
is  every  reason  why  we  should  pray.  If  He  were 
a  despot  we  could  never  be  sure,  when  we  asked 
for  bread,  that  He  would  not  give  us  a  stone;  He 
might  even  take  a  notion,  if  we  asked  for  a  fish, 
to  give  us  a  serpent ;  but  being  a  Father,  we  know 
that  if  in  ignorance  we  should  ask  for  a  stone  He 
would  be  likely  to  give  us  bread,  and  that  if  we 
asked  for  a  serpent  He  would  not  give  it  to  us 
under  any  circumstances.  Being  a  Father — not 
an  indulgent  parent,  but  a  good,  wise  and  loving 
Father — He  will  do  for  us  what  a  human  father 
would  do  for  his  children  if  he  had  the  heavenly 
Father's  power,  goodness,  wisdom  and  love.  In 
other  words.  He  will  do  that  which  is  best  for  us, 
whatever  we  may  ask  for. 

Ill 
How  does  a  good,  wise  and  loving  father  answer 
the  requests  of  his  children?  Clearly  he  answers 
them  in  accordance  with  and  not  regardless  of  the 
demands  of  his  character  as  a  good,  wise  and  lov- 
ing father.  A  true  father  does  not  ignore  the  de- 
mands of  his  own  moral  nature.  He  does  not  ig- 
nore his  will  as  expressed  in  the  laws  he  has  estab- 
lished for  the  government  of  his  family.     He  does 


How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer  ?       113 

not  ignore  his  promises.  He  does  not  favour  one 
child  at  the  expense  of  another.  He  does  not  exe- 
cute justice  without  regard  to  mercy  and  he  does 
not  show  mercy  without  regard  to  justice.  In  a 
word  he  is  true  to  himself. 

He  is  not  only  true  to  himself,  but  he  is  true  to  r 
his  children.  He  does  not  force  them  to  violate 
the  demands  of  their  own  moral  natu:  2.  He  does 
not  run  roughshod  over  their  wills  and  consciences. 
He  does  not  indulge  their  present  pleasures  to  the 
hurt  of  their  future  interests.  He  does  not  in- 
dulge their  bodies  to  the  hurt  of  their  immortal 
souls.  He  does  not  give  them  that  which  will  do 
them  harm,  no  matter  how  much  they  may  cry 
for  it. 

A  true  father  will  not  give  his  son  that  which 
may  do  him  actual  harm  under  any  circumstances. 
He  will  not  indulge  him  on  the  ground  that  he 
loves  him  too  well  to  deny  him.  If  he  really  loves 
him  he  will  not  hesitate  to  deny  him.  Nor  will  he 
grant  his  son's  request  if  he  must  thereby  violate 
the  laws  which  he  has  established  for  the  govern- 
ment of  his  children  with  a  view  to  their  eternal 
well-being.  He  may  choose  to  suspend  certain 
minor  regulations  for  a  little  while  for  John's 
benefit.  He  may  even  ask  Mother  to  delay  dinner 
for  half  an  hour.  But  he  will  not  violate  any  law 
that  is  essential  to  John's  eternal  well-being.  Nor 
will  he  favour  John  at  the  expense  of  Mary  or  any 
other  member  of  the  family.     He  will  not  answer 


114    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

John's  request  for  an  apple  by  giving  him  Jim's 
apple,  or  by  giving  him  the  privilege  of  snatching 
Jim's  apple  from  him.  Nor  will  he  give  him  the 
privilege  of  going  to  the  pantry  and  getting  an 
apple  without  Mother's  permission.  To  a  true 
father  even  a  mother  has  rights  which  cannot  be 
ignored  to  gratify  John.  A  true  father  must  be 
true  to  John,  but  he  must  be  as  true  to  the  rest  of 
the  family.  He  will  not  give  John  the  right  to  run 
over  other  people's  rights.  He  will  not  suspend 
the  demands  of  fairness  and  truth  for  John's  bene- 
fit, no  matter  how  pressing  the  exigencies  of  the 
case  may  appear. 

IV 

But  let  us  go  further.  Let  us  imagine  that  John 
wants  something  more  valuable  than  an  apple — say 
it  is  a  motorcycle.  Assuming  that  his  father  is 
abundantly  able  to  give  his  son  a  motorcycle,  how 
will  he  answer  his  request?  If  he  must  be  true 
both  to  himself  as  a  father  and  to  his  son  he  may 
be  compelled  to  say  no.  He  may  see  that  a  motor- 
cycle would  very  seriously  interfere  with  his  plans 
for  John's  future.  John  may  have  a  weak  heart. 
John  may  be  a  reckless  boy,  and  riding  a  motor- 
cycle tends  to  make  a  reckless  boy  more  reckless. 
John  may  be  excessively  fond  of  running  about 
and  a  motorcycle  might  make  him  more  excessively 
fond  of  running  about. 

On  the  other  hand,  Father  may  reach  the  con- 


How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer?       1 15 

elusion  that  John  is  just  the  sort  of  boy  that  should 
have  a  motorcycle.  In  that  event  what  will  he  do  ? 
If  he  is  an  indulgent  father  he  may  hand  him  the 
money  at  once  and  bid  him  go  and  buy  the  best 
motorcycle  in  town;  but  if  he  is  a  good  and  wise 
father  several  other  questions  will  demand  consid- 
eration. If  he  is  good  he  will  be  just,  and  if  he  is 
wise  he  will  be  thoughtful.  And  he  will  think  of 
the  other  children.  Will  it  be  fair  to  the  other 
children?  Also  he  will  think  of  Mother.  Will  a 
motorcycle  interfere  with  Mother^s  home  regula- 
tions and  plans?  And  having  settled  these  ques- 
tions he  will  go  back  to  John.  There  are  other 
questions  as  to  what  is  best  for  John.  Should  he 
give  John  the  money  outright  or  should  he  give 
him  an  opportunity  to  earn  it  ?  Or  should  he  give 
him  part  of  the  money  and  require  him  to  earn  the 
rest?  Should  he  look  after  the  whole  matter  of 
buying  without  John's  aid  or  should  he  require 
John  to  attend  to  such  details  as  going  for  cata- 
logues and  prices?  In  other  words,  should  he  an- 
swer John's  prayers  as  if  John  were  helpless  or 
should  he  require  John  to  help  answer  his  own 
prayer  to  the  extent  of  his  ability,  means  and  op- 
portunity ?  Also  should  he  let  him  have  the  motor- 
cycle unconditionally  and  at  once,  or  should  he  tell 
him  that  he  will  give  it  to  him  at  the  end  of  the 
school  term  provided  he  studies  hard  and  gets  no 
bad  reports? 

Perhaps  the  father  has  been  giving  John  an 


1 16    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer"? 

allowance  and  perhaps  John  has  been  saving  his 
money  and  now  has  just  enough  in  bank  to  pay  for 
a  motorcycle.  Should  the  father  pay  for  the  mo- 
torcycle after  he  has  already  given  John  the  means 
to  buy  it?  If  John  should  say  that  he  was  not 
willing  to  pay  for  it  with  his  own  money,  should 
his  father  pay  for  it  ?  Is  it  wise  for  a  father  who 
has  already  provided  his  boy  with  sufficient  means 
to  answer  his  prayer  for  a  motorcycle  to  answer  it 
himself  without  requiring  anything  of  the  boy? 

But  suppose  John  has  very  little  money  in  bank 
and  Father  has  promised  to  provide  the  rest ;  how 
will  he  do  it  ?  Plainly  he  will  do  it  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  and  rules  of  conduct  which  his 
character  demands.  There  are  various  ways  of 
getting  money  honestly,  some  of  which  John  does 
not  understand.  The  money  for  his  motorcycle 
may  come  so  mysteriously  that  he  may  not  be  able 
to  see  how  his  father  could  get  it  except  by  violat- 
ing some  law  of  God  or  man;  but  that  does  not 
affect  the  matter  one  way  or  another.  The  fact 
that  John  cannot  understand  how  his  father  could 
provide  so  much  money  at  once  without  violating 
the  law  is  no  evidence  that  the  law  has  been  vio- 
lated :  it  is  simply  evidence  that  the  father  knows 
of  some  ways  of  getting  money  of  which  the  son  is 
ignorant. 

V 
Now  let  us  go  back  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 


How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer  ?       117 

The  teaching  of  Jesus  is  that  God  answers  our 
prayers  as  our  Father.  If  we  fathers,  imperfect 
as  we  are,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  our  chil- 
dren, how  much  more  shall  our  heavenly  Father 
give  good  gifts  to  those  who  ask  Him?  With  this 
teaching  before  us  let  us  suppose  that  we  have 
come  to  God  as  loving,  obedient  children  come  to 
an  earthly  father.  We  are  on  good  terms  with 
Him  and  we  are  on  good  terms  with  His  other 
children.  We  have  come  to  ask  for  certain  things, 
but  being  loving,  obedient  children  there  is  one 
thing  we  desire  above  all  things ;  we  desire  that  the 
Father  shall  have  His  way.  We  want  Him  to  do 
what  He  thinks  best.  Not  for  the  world  would  we 
have  Him  give  us  what  we  want  if  it  should  prove 
to  be  contrary  to  His  will.  If  He  does  not  want 
us  to  have  it  we  do  not  want  it.  And  not  for  the 
world  would  we  have  Him  grant  our  request  if  it 
must  be  done  at  the  expense  of  our  fellow-men. 
If  the  rain  that  we  want  for  our  com  will  ruin  our 
neighbour's  wheat,  we  do  not  want  it. 

In  this  spirit  we  have  come  to  the  Father  and 
thus  far  all  is  well.  We  have  come  to  Him,  let  us 
say,  about  our  bread  problems.  How  will  God  an- 
swer our  prayer  for  bread  ? 

A  poor  woman  comes  to  me  with  a  pitiful  story 
of  hunger.  There  are  half  a  dozen  little  children 
at  home  and  they  have  had  nothing  to  eat  since 
yesterday.     Would  I  give  her  a  little  bread  ? 

I  assure  her  that  I  will  look  after  her  wants  at 


1 18    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer*? 

once  and  she  goes  away.  I  go  to  the  telephone 
and  order  my  grocer  to  send  her  a  bag  of  flour. 
The  flour  is  sent  and  an  hour  later  the  woman  is  at 
my  door  again. 

"  What's  the  trouble  now?  "  I  ask. 

"  Oh,  nothing!  "  she  exclaims  petulantly,  "  only 
I  didn't  ask  for  flour,  I  asked  for  bread." 

What  will  I  do  ?  Will  I  telephone  the  baker  to 
send  her  a  dozen  loaves  ?  Will  I  send  my  cook  to 
her  house  to  make  the  flour  into  bread?  Hardly. 
What  will  I  do  ?     What  ought  I  to  do  ? 

One  will  say  that  this  is  an  impossible  case,  but  it 
is  not.  Many  a  man  can  recall  a  similar  case  from 
his  own  experience.  Here  we  are  before  the 
Father  with  our  bread  problem  and  in  all  likelihood 
before  we  get  through  with  praying,  many  of  us 
are  going  to  behave  just  as  foolishly  as  that 
woman  did.  Was  it  not  only  yesterday  that  I 
caught  myself  pleading  with  God  for  a  thing  which 
He  had  already  practically  given  me  by  providing 
me  with  the  means  to  make  it  myself  ? 

If  a  great  calamity  should  overtake  me  and 
throw  me  flat  on  my  back,  and  I  should  lie  there 
helpless  and  alone  without  a  crust  of  bread  in  the 
house,  and  not  a  living  soul  within  reach,  and  if  I 
were  trying  to  live  in  harmony  with  God,  and  if  it 
were  worth  while  to  the  purpose  or  plans  of  God 
that  I  should  remain  in  this  world  a  while  longer, 
I  might  ask  God  for  bread  and  then  fold  my  hands 
and  close  my  eyes  and  wait  for  it  to  come.     And  I 


How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer*?       1 19 

might  expect  it  to  come.  I  might  expect  it  to 
come  regardless  of  whether  I  could  see  any  way 
for  it  to  come  in  accordance  with  any  known  law 
or  not.  God  does  as  much  for  little  animals  that 
have  come  out  into  the  light  and  are  crying  for 
eyes,  and  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  He  has  no  laws  or 
machinery  or  plans  to  meet  such  an  emergency  in  a 
human  being  who  is  trying  to  live  in  harmony  with 
Him.  But  if  I  cry  to  God  for  bread  and  I  have 
already  received  from  Him  the  power  to  do  some- 
thing— however  small  it  may  be — toward  helping 
Him  answer  my  prayer,  and  I  make  no  use  of  the 
power  He  has  given  me,  I  shall  cry  in  vain.  God 
is  not  going  to  keep  me  from  starving  if  I  am  not 
willing  to  cooperate  with  Him  to  the  extent  of  the 
means  He  has  already  given  me  to  make  the  bread 
I  need. 

Is  this  only  another  way  of  saying  that  God 
helps  those  who  help  themselves?  No,  it  is  not 
just  that:  what  I  mean  is  that  God  helps  those  who 
use  the  help  He  has  already  given  them  to  help 
themselves.  God  does  not  answer  a  request  with- 
out regard  to  what  He  has  already  done  for  us,  and 
if  we  want  further  help  from  Him  we  must  honour 
Him  by  making  the  most  of  the  help  He  has  al- 
ready placed  in  our  hands. 

A  wise  father  does  not  overlap  his  gifts.  If 
John  wants  a  sled  his  father  may  go  down-town 
and  buy  one  for  him,  or  If  John  is  able  to  make  a 
sled  he  may  provide  the  necessary  tools  and  ma- 


1 20    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  *? 

terials,  but  he  will  not  do  both.    Not  if  he  is  a  wise 
father. 
And  the  heavenly  Father  is  a  wise  Father. 

VI 

I  have  in  mind  at  this  moment  a  man  who  de- 
veloped a  physical  trouble  which  seriously  inter- 
fered with  his  usefulness  and  threatened  to  bring 
his  life-work  to  a  premature  end.  As  he  was  de- 
voting himself  wholly  to  God's  service  it  seemed 
to  him  that  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  go  to  God  and 
ask  Him  to  remove  it.  It  hardly  seemed  possible 
that  God  could  refuse  to  grant  such  a  request  of 
a  faithful  servant  whose  only  desire  was  to  go  on 
with  the  work  which  God  had  given  him  to  do. 
But  his  prayers  brought  no  answer;  on  the  con- 
trary his  trouble  grew  steadily  worse.  One  day  it 
occurred  to  him  that  his  pain  might  be  doing  him 
far  more  good  than  harm,  and  that  instead  of  ask- 
ing God  to  remove  it  he  should  leave  the  matter 
to  His  judgment  and  will,  only  asking  that  it  might 
not  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  duties  which 
He  had  laid  upon  him.  If  his  trouble  was  doing 
an  important  work  in  the  development  of  his  char- 
acter, God  might  prefer  to  let  it  remain  and  either 
reduce  the  pain  to  a  point  where  it  would  not  be 
beyond  his  strength  or  else  give  him  such  addi- 
tional strength  as  he  might  need  to  triumph  over 
it.  And  so,  like  Paul,  he  became  content  for  his 
thorn  in  the  flesh  to  remain,  only  asking  that  God's 


How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer  *?       121 

grace  might  be  sufficient  for  him.  But  this  also 
failed:  the  pain  was  not  reduced  and  no  more 
strength  was  given  to  bear  it  than  he  had  before. 

At  last  one  day  when  he  was  almost  ready  to 
give  up  in  despair,  the  thought  came  to  him  that 
he  had  not  been  fair  with  God.  In  all  those 
months  of  suffering  he  had  not  so  much  as  lifted 
a  finger  to  help  himself.  God  had  given  him  many 
means  which  he  might  have  used  in  seeking  relief 
and  he  had  not  tried  a  single  one  of  them.  God 
had  prospered  him,  and  he  was  abundantly  able  to 
send  for  a  good  doctor,  but  he  had  preferred  to  de- 
pend upon  heaven  to  heal  him  direct;  that  would 
glorify  God  and  incidentally  be  a  great  saving. 
Also  God  had  given  him  a  good  mind  and  he  might 
have  studied  his  own  case  and  perhaps  learned 
enough  to  reduce  the  pain  sufficiently  to  enable 
him  to  resume  his  work.  And  he  had  preferred 
to  use  his  own  mind  for  other  things  and  depend 
upon  God  to  do  his  thinking  about  this  matter  for 
him.  Also  God  had  given  him  a  strong  will  and 
he  might  have  used  it  in  cutting  out  of  his  daily 
life  everything  which  he  had  found  to  be  aggra- 
vating to  his  trouble.  And  he  had  not  given  his 
will  a  thought,  but  had  gone  on  indulging  his  ap- 
petite regardless  of  consequences  as  he  had  done 
before  the  trouble  appeared. 

And  so  he  decided  to  make  a  trial.  He  would  be 
fair  with  God.  Instead  of  dishonouring  Him  by 
ignoring  the  means  of  relief  which  He  had  already 


122    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

given  him,  he  would  honour  Him  by  making  the 
most  of  them.  He  would  send  for  a  good  doctor ; 
he  would  study  his  own  case;  he  would  coura- 
geously cut  out  all  self-indulgence  from  his  life  and 
faithfully  obey  God's  laws  of  health.  And  he 
would  trust  God  implicitly  to  bless  all  those  means 
and  to  supply  anything  else  that  might  be  needed. 
Thus  he  would  place  himself  in  the  position  of 
Paul,  who  not  only  received  grace  sufficient  to  go 
on  with  his  work  in  spite  of  his  infirmity  but  was 
enabled  to  rejoice  in  his  infirmity. 

Need  I  add  that  from  the  very  day  this  man 
began  to  be  fair  with  God  he  began  to  triumph  over 
his  pain,  and  that  while  the  thorn  in  the  flesh  has 
remained  he  has  never  lacked  for  strength  to  do 
a  well  man's  work? 

VII 

^  In  answering  our  prayers  God  first  makes  use 
of  the  means  He  has  already  placed  in  our  hands. 
If  we  are  not  willing  to  cooperate  with  Him  so 
that  these  means  will  be  available  we  need  not  ex- 
pect Him  to  offer  any  further  help;  but  if  we 
bring  to  His  service  everything  He  has  already 
given  us  and  these  are  not  sufficient  for  our  needs, 
we  may  be  sure  that  He  will  be  ready  to  supply 
all  the  additional  help  that  will  be  required. 

How  will  God  provide  this  additional  help  ? 

Unquestionably  He  will  do  it  in  accordance  with 
His  own  will  and  therefore  in  accordance  with 


How  Does  God  Answer  Prayer?       123 

law,  which  is  but  an  expression  of  His  will.  In 
most  cases  He  will  probably  do  it  in  accordance 
with  laws  with  which  we  are  familiar.  If  I  am 
praying  for  bread  and  am  using  to  the  best  of  my 
ability  all  the  means  God  has  given  me  to  make 
bread,  it  is  probable  that  He  will  provide  for  my 
needs  in  accordance  with  what  we  call  natural  laws. 
In  other  words  if  I  fall  in  with  His  natural  laws 
by  intelligent  and  faithful  plowing  and  sowing  I 
shall  be  very  likely  to  reap  by  the  same  laws.  But 
suppose  the  hail  should  destroy  my  wheat,  or  my 
barns  should  burn  down ;  and  suppose  a  fire  should 
sweep  away  the  rest  of  my  property  and  with  it  all 
my  credit;  and  suppose  disease  should  overtake 
me  so  that  I  could  no  longer  work;  and  suppose 
there  should  be  a  good  reason  why  I  should  remain 
a  little  longer  in  the  world ;  and  suppose  I  could  not 
remain  longer  unless  God  should  provide  bread 
within  forty-eight  hours?  How  would  God  pro- 
vide it  ?  Natural  laws  could  not  move  fast  enough 
for  such  an  exigency;  would  God  answer  my 
prayer  by  running  roughshod  over  law  ? 

No:  He  would  answer  it  in  accordance  with  law. 
As  I  have  said  all  law  is  but  an  expression  of  God's 
will  and  we  may  be  sure  He  would  not  find  it 
necessary  to  run  roughshod  over  His  will.  If  it 
should  be  His  will  that  I  should  continue  to  live 
here  a  little  longer  He  would  send  me  the  bread  I 
need,  not  in  defiance  of  His  will  as  expressed  in 
law,  but  in  accordance  with  it.    He  might  not  do 


124    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

it  by  means  of  any  law  or  method  or  power  with 
which  I  am  familiar,  but  He  would  do  it.  And 
so  far  as  we  can  see  there  is  no  reason  why  He 
should  not  do  it  by  means  or  forces  that  are  just 
as  natural  as  any  of  those  with  which  I  was  al- 
ready familiar. 

Does  this  mean  that  in  such  an  emergency  God 
would  perform  a  miracle?  Yes,  if  by  a  miracle  we 
mean  something  that  is  done,  not  in  violation  of 
law,  but  in  accordance  with  laws  which  are  beyond 
our  range  of  vision.  So  far  as  we  can  see  there  is 
no  reason  why  God  should  not  provide  bread  to 
meet  a  present  exigency  in  a  perfectly  natural  way, 
just  as  He  provides  bread  for  the  coming  winter. 
I  have  no  right  to  say  that  God  cannot,  without 
violating  law,  send  a  stranger  to  my  door  with  a 
loaf  of  bread  to  keep  me  from  starving.  So  far  as 
I  know  to  the  contrary  He  may  have  so  arranged 
the  forces  of  the  universe  that  it  would  be  just  as 
natural  for  a  stranger  to  bring  a  loaf  of  bread  to 
my  door  under  certain  conditions  and  circum- 
stances as  it  would  be  for  my  land  to  bring  me 
my  winter's  supply  of  wheat  under  certain  condi- 
tions and  circumstances. 


ASKING  IN  HIS  NAME 

I 

IN  their  enthusiasm  for  the  doctrine  o£  the 
atonement  the  old-time  preachers  often  over- 
shot the  mark.  Often  in  their  zeal  to  exalt 
the  atoning  death  of  Christ  they  left  the  impression 
that  humanity  owed  everything  to  the  Son,  the 
Father  not  being  interested  in  the  salvation  of  men 
except  for  His  Son's  sake.  The  Father  was  repre- 
sented as  being  about  to  destroy  men  because  of 
their  sins,  but  seeing  that  His  Son  loved  them, 
relented  and  consented  for  His  sake  to  listen  to 
their  cries  and  come  to  their  help.  He  was  like  a 
certain  rich  man  (to  use  a  popular  illustration  of 
that  day)  to  whom  a  poor  fellow  came  for  help. 
The  rich  man  was  about  to  turn  the  beggar  away 
w^hen  the  poor  wretch  pulled  a  soiled  note  from 
his  pocket  and  handed  it  to  him.  It  proved  to  be 
from  the  rich  man's  son  who  was  far  away,  and 
in  it  the  son  asked  his  father  to  help  the  poor  man 
for  his  sake.  And  when  the  father  read  it  his  heart 
filled  up  with  tenderness  and  he  gladly  gave  the 
beggar  all  that  he  asked. 

Apparently  it  was  this  strange  idea  which  gave 
rise  to  the  present  popular  conception  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Christ  about  asking  in  His  name.    If  the 

125 


126    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

Father  is  interested  in  us  solely  for  His  Son's 
sake,  then  surely  all  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  ask 
for  what  we  want  in  the  Son's  name  (which  in 
the  popular  mind  means  the  same  as  '*  for  His 
sake  ")  and  it  will  be  done  unto  us. 

This  notion  that  our  position  before  God  is  that 
of  the  beggar  who  has  come  to  a  rich  man  with  a 
note  from  the  rich  man's  son  has  probably  done 
more  to  weaken  the  prayer  link  in  our  chain  of 
faith  than  anything  else  that  has  been  taught  in 
the  name  of  Christ.  For  generations — nobody 
knows  how  long — pious  mothers  have  been  telling 
their  children  that  if  they  wanted  their  prayers  an- 
swered they  must  be  sure  to  say  "  For  Jesus' 
sake  " ;  and  for  as  many  generations,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  this  teaching,  their  children  on  reaching 
the  age  of  nine  or  ten,  have  been  subjected  to  a 
shock  which  has  weakened  and  in  many  cases  has 
almost  destroyed  their  religious  faith,  leaving  them 
palsied  with  doubt  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  How 
many  children  at  that  age  have  said  to  themselves 
— and  sometimes  out  loud — 

"  I  am  not  going  to  believe  in  God  any  more. 
Mother  said  if  I  wanted  anything  and  would  say, 
*  For  Jesus'  sake '  He  would  give  it  to  me:  and  I 
said  it  and  said  it  and  didn't  get  anything!  " 

II 

To  say  that  God  will  give  us  whatever  we  ask 
for  if  we  ask  for  Jesus'  sake  is  as  absurd  as  to 


Asking  In  His  Name  127 

say  that  He  will  give  us  whatever  we  ask  for  re- 
gardless of  circumstances  or  conditions.  Cer- 
tainly Jesus  never  intended  to  create  the  impres- 
sion that  God  is  ready  to  give  men  everything  they 
may  ask  for,  or  everything  they  ask  for  if  they  will 
only  mention  His  name,  which  amounts  to  the 
same  thing.  Nobody  but  an  enemy  of  God  could 
have  come  into  this  world  and  told  the  people  that 
henceforth  God  would  be  subject  to  their  orders, 
and  if  they  wanted  anything  all  they  had  to  do  was 
to  ask  for  it  and  say,  "  For  Jesus'  sake.''  Suppose 
God  had  given  His  Son  the  right  to  make  the  world 
such  a  promise  and  had  stood  by  His  promise. 
What  would  have  happened?  Suppose  a  mother 
should  say  to  her  children: 

"  Children,  nothing  that  I  do  pleases  you,  and 
I  am  going  to  stop  trying  to  run  this  home  accord- 
ing to  my  own  judgment.  Hereafter  you  can 
have  your  own  way.  I  am  not  going  to  leave  you 
to  yourselves,  but  I  am  going  to  do  everything  ac- 
cording to  your  own  wishes.  Everything  you  want 
you  shall  have.  If  Johnny  wants  the  house  turned 
upside  down  he  can  have  it  that  way.  If  Baby 
Kate  wants  to  play  with  Father's  razor,  she  can 
play  with  it  to  her  heart's  content.  If  William 
wants  to  turn  his  room  into  a  gambling  den  for 
his  friends,  he  can  do  It.  Anything  you  ask  for 
you  shall  have." 

What  would  happen  to  that  home  ?  What  would 
become  of  Mother's  authority?     What  would  be- 


128    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

come  of  Mother?  How  long  would  it  take  the 
whole  family  to  go  to  the  dogs  ? 

What  would  happen  to  that  home  would  hap- 
pen to  the  whole  world  if  God  should  say  to  all 
men,  "  Ask  what  ye  will  and  say, '  For  Jesus'  sake/ 
and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you." 

But  if  Jesus  did  not  promise  that,  what  did  He 
promise  ?  Unquestionably,  He  promised  in  a  gen- 
eral way  that  men's  prayers  should  be  answered. 
But  what  did  He  mean  by  prayer?  As  I  have 
said.  He  did  not  mean  the  cry  of  a  beggar  to  a 
stranger.  He  was  not  thinking  of  beggars  going 
to  strangers:  he  was  thinking  of  children  going  to 
a  father.  However  unworthy  we  might  be,  if  we 
would  go  to  God  in  the  Son's  name — if  we  would 
go  in  the  Son's  spirit,  recognizing  Him  as  our 
Father,  submitting  ourselves  to  His  will  as  He  did, 
trusting  to  His  judgment — to  His  knowledge  of 
what  is  best  for  us — and  desiring  nothing  that  did 
not  accord  with  His  will,  our  prayers  would  be 
answered. 

In  other  words,  according  to  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  there  is  but  one  way  in  which  a  man  can 
get  from  God  everything  he  desires,  and  that  is  to 
fall  in  so  completely  with  the  Master  that  when 
he  goes  to  the  Father  he  cannot  desire  anything 
that  does  not  harmonize  with  the  Father's  will. 
That  was  what  He  meant  when  He  said,  "  H  ye 
abide  in  me  and  my  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall 
ask  what  ye  will  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you." 


Asking  In  His  Name  129 

And  that  is  what  He  meant  when  He  said:  "  If  ye 
shall  ask  anything  in  my  name  I  will  do  it."  If  I 
will  become  completely  united  with  Him,  as  a 
branch  is  united  with  the  vine,  so  that  His  spirit 
and  His  will  shall  have  free  course  through  me, 
as  the  sap  of  the  vine  has  free  course  through  the 
branch,  then  when  I  go  to  the  Father  I  will  go  in 
the  Master's  spirit  and  with  the  Master's  desires; 
and  having  His  spirit  and  desires  I  will  represent 
Him;  I  will  pray  in  His  name  or  in  His  stead. 
Thus  if  I  ask  anything  in  His  name  (not  with  my 
blundering  lips,  which  often  ask  for  foolish  things, 
but  with  my  heart,  which  will  desire  only  what  He 
desires),  it  shall  be  done  unto  me. 

Is  this  unreasonable  ?  Then  science  is  unreason- 
able, for  this  teaching  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
the  scientific  teaching  that  all  supplies  come 
through  harmony  with  law.  According  to  science 
if  I  could  bring  every  part  of  my  physical  being 
into  perfect  harmony  with  law,  every  part  would 
be  in  vital  touch  with  the  sources  of  supply,  and 
my  physical  needs  would  be  as  perfectly  supplied 
as 'they  would  be  if  I  were  a  star  revolving  in  its 
sphere  in  perfect  harmony  with  law.  According  to 
Jesus,  if  I  will  go  to  the  Father  in  His  name — if  I 
will  become  one  with  the  Son,  as  the  branch  is  one 
with  the  vine,  so  that  when  I  go  to  the  Father  I 
shall  represent  the  Son's  spirit  and  will,  desiring 
only  that  which  the  Son  would  desire — in  a  word, 
if  I  will  go  to  the  Father  in  such  harmony  with 


130    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

the  Son  that  I  can  speak  for  Him,  I  shall  be  in 
harmony  with  the  will  of  the  Father,  and  there- 
fore, of  His  law ;  and  being  in  harmony  with  His 
law  I  shall  be  in  vital  communication  with  the 
Supreme  Source  of  Supply. 

Ill 

The  scientific  truth  upon  which  this  teaching  of 
Jesus  rests  not  only  runs  through  nature,  but  it 
runs  through  human  experience.  Let  us  take  a 
case  from  every-day  life.  Here — let  us  say — is  my 
friend  Jones.  Jones  and  I  grew  up  together.  We 
were  chums  almost  from  infancy.  We  had  the 
same  point  of  view,  the  same  ideals,  the  same 
sympathies,  and  we  grew  up  to  think  alike  and  feel 
alike.  It  was  as  if  we  were  two  branches  of  the 
same  vine. 

Jones  and  I  are  stockholders  in  the  same  busi- 
ness concerns,  and  when  he  is  unable  to  attend  a 
stockholders'  meeting  he  always  asks  me  to  repre- 
sent him.  But  he  never  tells  me  what  to  do.  Usu- 
ally when  I  remind  him  that  certain  things  will 
come  up  he  says :  "  Well,  you  and  I  always  agree, 
so  just  act  on  your  own  good  judgment  and  it  will 
be  satisfactory  to  me." 

Jones's  father  lives  in  Philadelphia.  I  have  a 
business  proposition  which  I  am  unable  to  handle 
alone  and  I  am  going  to  Philadelphia  for  help. 
Jones  and  I  have  talked  the  matter  over  and  as 
usual  he  is  in  perfect  sympathy  with  my  wishes 


Asking  In  His  Name  131 

and  plans.  Jones  is  one  of  those  fortunate  fellows 
whose  fathers  were  their  best  chums  in  boyhood 
and  he  and  his  father  are  still  in  perfect  sympathy 
with  each  other.  He  never  wants  anything  that  is 
not  in  harmony  with  his  father's  wishes,  and  when 
he  wants  help  about  a  matter  with  which  both  he 
and  his  father  are  perfectly  familiar  he  simply 
asks  for  it.  And  he  gets  it.  If  it  is  a  matter  with 
which  he  is  not  as  familiar  as  his  father,  he  says  to 
him: 

"  You  understand  the  situation  better  than  I  do 
and  I  leave  the  matter  in  your  hands.  Remember, 
I  don't  want  anything  that  is  not  in  full  accord 
with  your  wishes  and  plans." 

And  so  when  I  am  about  to  leave  for  Philadel- 
phia Jones  comes  over  and  says  to  me : 

"  You  know  how  I  feel.  I  want  you  to  have  the 
help  you  need  and  Father  can  help  you,  and  I  want 
you  to  go  to  him  in  my  name.  Just  go  as  if  you 
were  me,  or  as  if  you  were  representing  me.  You 
and  I  have  the  same  spirit  and  wishes  and  he  and 
I  have  the  same  spirit  and  wishes,  and  if  you  will 
just  let  him  know  that  your  wishes  are  mine,  all  of 
us  being  in  perfect  agreement  about  the  matter, 
you  will  get  what  you  ask  for." 

Do  I  mean  to  say  that  this  is  all  that  is  meant  by 
asking  in  Jesus*  name?  No ;  but  I  do  mean  to  say 
that  it  does  not  mean  less  than  this. 

One  thing  more.  Sometimes  when  we  tell  God 
that  we  are  asking  "  for  Jesus'  sake  "  or  "  in  Jesus' 


132    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

name  "  our  words  fall  back  upon  us  as  if  they  had 
struck  a  heaven  of  brass.  What  is  the  trouble? 
I  am  reminded  of  another  case  in  every-day  life. 
It  is  the  case  of — well,  let  us  call  him  Joe  Brown. 
Joe  is  Jones's  nephew.  He  is  a  selfish  young  fel- 
low who  has  never  learned  the  meaning  of  har- 
mony. He  has  always  looked  out  for  number  one 
and  never  harmonizes  with  anybody.  As  for  Jones 
he  was  never  known  to  agree  with  him  about  any- 
thing. But  Joe  is  in  trouble  and  he  goes  to  Phila- 
delphia to  see  Jones's  father. 

"  Mr.  Jones,"  says  Joe,  "  your  son  and  I  are 
near  neighbours  and  close  friends.  We  are  always 
together  and  what  I  want  he  wants.  And  he  told 
me  that  I  could  come  to  you  in  his  name  and  s^y 
to  you  that  he  would  be  glad  if  you  would  give 
me  the  help  I  need." 

But  the  old  man,  instead  of  handing  the  youth 
what  he  asks  for,  only  gives  him  a  searching  gaze 
and  turns  away. 

The  trouble  with  many  who  think  they  are  ask- 
ing in  Jesus'  name  is  that  they  are  not  representing 
Jesus.    They  are  misrepresenting  Him. 


XI 


THE  MASTER'S  INSTRUCTIONS  TO 
THOSE  WHO  WOULD  PRAY 


WHEN  Jesus  came  religion  among  the 
Jews  was  like  an  orange  with  all  the 
juice  sucked  out.  All  the  sweetness 
was  gone  and  nothing  was  left  but  a  tasteless 
form.  It  was  not  an  irreligious  age;  no  people 
ever  made  more  of  their  religion  than  the  Jews  of 
the  Master's  day;  but  such  a  religion!  Wherever 
He  Went  He  was  oppressed  by  the  sight  of  men 
carrying  their  religion  as  a  heavy  burden.  It  was 
just  a  vast  mass  of  burdensome  forms.  Even 
prayer,  which  should  have  been  as  natural  and 
easy  as  breathing,  had  lost  its  meaning  and  degene- 
rated to  a  mere  lifting  of  dead  weights.  Men  said  ^ 
their  prayers  as  a  painful  task  with  the  hope  of  be- 
ing rewarded  for  their  pains.  Even  the  rabbis 
could  see  nothing  in  it  but  so  much  labour  for  which 
they  desired  a  reward  either  from  God  or  man. 
And  from  the  number  of  rabbis  that  were  to  be 
seen  saying  their  prayers  on  the  street  corners,  it 
was  evident  that  the  desire  for  reward  from  men 

^33 


134    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

played  no  insignificant  part  in  the  worship  of  the 
day. 

,  The  sight  of  those  street-corner  worshippers 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  Master  and  it  is 
not  strange  that  in  His  Sermon  on  the  Mount  He 
should  have  begun  His  instructions  about  prayer 
by  warning  His  hearers  against  their  example. 
Those  men,  Jesus  declared  plainly,  were  not  really 
praying:  they  were  simply  making  a  show  of  piety 
for  gain;  they  wanted  the  name  of  being  pious. 
When  a  man  really  wants  to  pray  he  has  no  desire 
to  advertise  the  fact.  He  is  not  thinking  of  the 
public  eye  or  ear;  he  is  thinking  of  the  Father  and 
he  does  not  seek  a  place  to  pray  where  men  can  see 
how  pious  he  is:  he  prefers  to  be  alone  with  the 
Father.  It  is  easy  to  "  say  prayers  "  on  a  street 
corner,  but  hard  to  pray;  therefore,  says  Jesus, 
"  when  thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet " ;  shut 
out  the  world  and  shut  yourself  in  with  the  Father 
that  you  may  give  your  undivided  mind  and  heart 
to  Him.  This,  of  course,  does  not  mean  that  we 
should  not  pray  where  we  would  be  seen  (as  in 
church),  but  that  we  should  not  pray  to  be  seen. 

But  hypocrisy  was  not  the  only  thing  in  the 
prayers  of  the  rabbis  that  Jesus  abhorred.  Their 
heathenish  Ideas  of  prayer  were  equally  repug- 
nant to  Him.  The  way  those  men  rattled  off  their 
prayers,  repeating  them  over  and  over  without  a 
thought  of  what  they  were  saying,  was  horrifying 
to  His  sensitive  spirit.    How  could  men  thus  trifle 


The  Master's  Instructions  135 

with  His  Father!  How  could  they  imagine  that 
they  could  move  the  Father  by  such  puerile  meth- 
ods as  the  heathen  used  to  move  their  gods!  As 
if  the  Father  was  not  concerned  about  their  re- 
quests but  only  about  the  number  of  times  they 
repeated  them ! 

Of  course  Jesus  did  not  object  to  repetition. 
What  disturbed  Him  was  their  "  vain  repetitions." 
No  doubt  He  would  have  them  repeat  their  peti- 
tions so  long  as  repeating  showed  earnestness  or 
tended  to  beget  earnestness:  the  thing  that  grated 
upon  Him  was  the  mechanical  rattling  off  of 
prayers  which  men  engaged  in  with  the  idea  that 
God  watched  their  lips  rather  than  their  hearts  and 
would  measure  His  answer  to  each  petition  by  the 
number  of  times  it  was  repeated. 


II 

After  warning  His  hearers  against  the  foolish 
misconceptions  of  prayer  so  common  in  His  day, 
Jesus  gave  them  a  model  prayer  to  use  when  they 
chose,  and  after  which  they  might  model  prayers 
for  themselves.  In  this  prayer  He  teaches  us  that 
we  might  approach  God  as  a  child  approaches  his 
father;  that  God  is  our  Father;  that  God  is  the 
Father  of  our  fellow-men  as  well  as  of  ourselves ; 
that  we  are  to  go  to  Him  as  one  of  His  children 
and  not  as  His  only  child ;  that  all  men  are  children 
of  the  same  Father,  and  therefore  all  men  are 


136    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

brethren.  And  when  we  go  to  Him  we  should  be 
concerned  most  of  all  about  the  Father's  interests 
and  the  Father's  glory.  First  of  all,  we  should 
pray  that  His  name  may  be  hallowed,  that  He  may 
be  held  in  reverence  by  all  men,  that  His  will  may 
be  perfectly  done  here  on  earth  even  as  it  is  done 
in  heaven. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  fact  about  this 
prayer  is  that  it  entirely  reverses  the  usual  order. 
Where  Christ  is  not  known  a  man  goes  to  God 
thinking  only  of  his  own  wants  and  will.  It  never 
occurs  to  him  that  God  has  any  interests  and  that 
as  a  child  of  God  he  should  think  of  God's  inter- 
ests, too.  But  according  to  this  model  prayer  a 
man,  whatever  his  needs,  should  go  to  God  con- 
cerned most  of  all  for  God's  interests.  The  fact 
is,  we  are  not  in  a  condition  to  talk  with  God  about 
our  personal  needs  until  we  realize  that  we  are  a 
part  of  His  kingdom  and  can  ask  Him  not  so 
much  to  help  us  as  to  help  His  own. 

When  we  realize  this  and  come  to  speak  of  our 
personal  needs  we  shall  be  content  to  ask  Him  to 
supply  our  immediate  wants.  As  for  our  future 
wants,  we  need  not  be  concerned  about  them,  for 
the  reason  that  we  have  constant  access  to  Him, 
and  we  know  that  He  will  not  change,  and  that 
His  storehouse  will  not  fail;  and  besides,  we  shall 
want  to  go  to  Him  every  day  anyhow.  And  we 
shall  ask  Him  to  supply  our  needs — not  to  satisfy 
our  desires,  seeing  that  what  we  desire  Is  very  apt 


The  Master's  Instructions  137 

to  be  what  we  do  not  need.  We  shall  ask  for 
bread,  and  we  shall  not  insist  on  its  being  butter^ed. 
If  we  are  thinking  of  our  own  interests  and  not  of 
His,  we  shall  be  more  likely  to  ask  for  cigars  than 
bread,  and  we  shall  be  sure  to  insist  on  His  giving 
us  the  portion  which  belongeth  to  us  in  a  lump. 
Then  we  will  go  off  and  play  the  prodigal  and 
never  come  back  until  we  have  come  to  husks. 

In  praying  for  bread  we  must  remember  that  it 
is  not  bread  for  the  body  alone  that  we  need,  but 
bread  for  the  soul  also.  Moreover  in  praying  for 
bread  for  the  body  it  would  be  well  to  remember 
that  it  is  bread  we  are  to  ask  for,  not  cake.  That 
was  what  God  gave  the  Hebrews  in  the  wilder- 
ness— bread  and  not  cake ;  that  is,  He  provided  for 
their  necessities:  He  did  not  indulge  them  in  lux- 
uries. In  other  words  He  treated  them  as  men,  not 
as  babies.  He  had  no  idea  of  indulging  them.  He 
had  undertaken  to  carry  them  across  the  desert, 
and  He  would  provide  the  means.  He  would  not 
pamper  them;  He  would  give  them  what  they 
needed. 

One  reason  why  there  is  so  little  of  the  spirit  of 
praise  and  gratitude  in  our  hearts  is  that  we  look 
to  God  for  cake  rather  than  bread.  We  desire  the 
sweetmeats  of  life.  We  go  to  Him  with  our  selfish 
wishes,  asking  not  for  the  things  that  we  need,  but 
for  the  things  we  desire;  and  because  we  do  not 
get  these  things  we  are  not  grateful  for  the  plain 
bread  that  comes  to  us.     Many  of  us  are  like  pee- 


138    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

vish  children  who  dash  the  bread  from  the  mother's 
hand  because  it  is  not  cake,  or  because  it  is  not 
sugar-coated.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  we  are  al- 
ways saying  that  so  many  of  our  prayers  are  not 
answered?  God  is  concerned  about  our  little 
needs,  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  Him  as  an 
indulgent  father  who  is  willing  to  spoil  us  by  giv- 
ing us  the  things  that  are  hurtful  simply  because 
He  would  not  deny  us.  He  wants  us  to  be  happy 
to-day,  but  He  is  planning  for  our  happiness  in 
the  future ;  and  He  is  not  going  to  provide  for  to- 
day's pleasure  at  the  expense  of  future  happiness. 
It  may  be  well  to  ask  Him  to  deliver  us  from  a 
present  headache,  but  after  all  is  it  not  time  for 
us  to  play  the  man,  and  if  God  does  not  choose  to 
remove  the  headache,  can't  we  bear  it  like  men  and 
not  fret  and  fume  around  Him  like  petulant  chil- 
dren? 

Ill 
After  giving  them  His  model  prayer  Jesus  went 
on  to  show  that  God  measures  our  prayers  not  by 
what  He  hears  from  our  lips,  but  from  what  He 
sees  in  our  hearts.  If,  for  instance,  we  ask  God  to 
forgive  us  our  trespasses,  however  true  to  form 
our  petition  may  be,  the  answer  will  depend  upon 
how  we  feel  deep  down  in  our  hearts  toward  those 
who  have  trespassed  against  us.  If  we  from  our 
hearts  forgive  those  who  trespass  against  us,  God 
will  forgive  us ;  if  we  do  not,  God  will  not  forgive 


The  Master's  Instructions  139 

us,  no  matter  how  often  or  earnestly  or  trustfully 
we  may  pray. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  answer  to  prayer 
is  an  arbitrary  matter  with  God;  it  means  that  it 
is  not  an  arbitrary  matter  with  God.  The  rule  to 
forgive  only  those  who  forgive  others  was  not  es- 
tablished by  arbitrary  legislation:  it  grew  out  of 
our  relationship  with  God  as  our  Father.  A  father 
does  not  arbitrarily  refuse  to  forgive  his  son  who 
has  refused  to  forgive  his  brother:  he  refuses  be- 
cause his  obligations  as  a  father  require  it.  John 
disobeyed  his  father  and  an  hour  afterwards  went 
to  "  make  up  "  with  him.  But  just  as  he  entered 
the  door  his  father  heard  him  say  to  Joe :  "  No ; 
I'll  never  forgive  you  as  long  as  I  live."  What 
would  you  have  done  if  you  had  been  in  that  fa- 
ther's place?  If  John  wanted  you  to  receive  him 
with  open  arms,  but  would  not  recognize  your 
other  son  as  his  brother,  would  you  receive  him? 
Can  a  true  father  open  his  arms  to  a  child  who 
refuses  to  go  to  his  bosom  along  with  his  brother? 

Other  instructions  relating  to  the  spirit  in  whicK 
men  should  pray  were  given  by  the  Master  frorr* 
time  to  time.  If  we  would  have  God  treat  us  as 
His  children  we  must  go  to  Him  in  the  trustful 
spirit  with  which  loving,  obedient  children  go  to 
an  earthly  father.  When  I  was  a  child  I  learned 
that  there  were  certain  things  which  my  father 
was  always  ready  to  give  me  the  moment  I  asked 
for  them.    And  so  when  I  went  to  him  I  did  not 


140    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

go  saying  in  my  heart  that  he  could  give  it  to  me 
if  he  wished  and  that  I  hoped  he  wouldn't  put  me 
off.  I  went  with  absolute  confidence  that  the  mo- 
ment I  asked  for  it  I  should  get  it.  But  there  were 
many  other  things  about  which  I  had  never  heard 
him  express  his  wishes,  and  when  I  went  to  him 
about  those  things  I  was  not  sure  that  I  should 
get  them.  Nevertheless,  while  I  doubted  whether 
my  father  would  give  them  to  me  I  did  not  for  one 
moment  doubt  my  father.  I  always  went  to  him 
believing  in  him.  I  might  doubt  what  he  would 
do  in  a  particular  case,  but  I  never  doubted  his  love 
or  his  ability  to  do  what  his  love  and  wisdom  might 
prompt  him  to  do.  I  never  doubted  that  he  would 
give  me  what  I  asked  for  if  it  was  best  that  I 
should  have  it. 

It  IS  in  this  trustful  spirit  of  a  child,  Jesus  tells 
us,  that  we  should  go  to  the  Father.  If  we  go  to 
Him  for  something  which  we  know  He  is  ready 
to  give  us  the  moment  we  ask  it — something  that 
is  essential  to  our  eternal  welfare — we  should  not 
go  believing  that  He  will  give  it  to  us  if  it  is  His 
will,  or  that  He  may  give  it  to  us  at  some  future 
time,  but  we  should  go  believing  that  the  moment 
we  open  our  hearts  to  Him  we  shall  receive  our 
desire.  If  we  ask  for  such  things  as  forgiveness, 
cleansing,  strength  to  overcome  temptation,  we 
should  ask  believing,  not  that  we  shall  receive  them 
at  some  future  time,  but  that  we  do  receive  them. 

But  there  are  many  things  concerning  which  we 


The  Master's  Instructions  141 

do  not  know  the  Father's  mind.  Must  we  ask  for 
these  things  beHeving  that  we  "  do  receive  them  "  ? 
No ;  that  is  impossible.  God  does  not  ask  us  to  be 
credulous,  He  asks  us  to  believe;  and  we  can  be- 
lieve only  on  His  w^ord  or  on  evidence.  In  such 
cases  we  cannot  pray  believing  that  God  will  give 
us  what  we  ask  for,  for  we  have  no  word  or  evi- 
dence on  the  subject;  but  we  have  His  word  and 
we  have  abundant  evidence  that  He  is  our  Father 
— an  infinitely  powerful,  good,  wise  and  loving 
Father — and  we  can  pray  believing  in  Him  as  our 
Father  and  therefore  believing  that  if  He  sees  that 
the  thing  we  ask  for  is  best  for  us  He  will  give 
it  to  us. 

And  that  after  all  is  the  greater  faith.  It  is  a 
small  matter  that  John  should  come  to  me  believ- 
ing that  I  will  give  him  a  new  pair  of  shoes.  He 
does  not  have  to  believe  in  me  in  order  to  believe 
that.  Indeed  he  may  say  to  himself  that  he  does 
not  believe  in  me,  but  he  is  sure  I  will  give  him  the 
shoes  because  if  I  don't  people  will  talk  about  me. 
As  John's  father  I  don't  care  whether  he  believes 
that  I  will  give  him  the  shoes  or  not,  but  I  do 
demand  that  he  shall  believe  in  me  and  therefore 
shall  believe  that  if  I  feel  that  he  should  have  the 
shoes  I  shall  give  them  to  him. 


IV 

Faith  and  earnestness  are  always  found  together 
d  are  always  found  encouraging  each  other. 


142    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

The  more  faith  we  have  the  more  earnestly  we 
pray,  and  as  our  earnestness  increases  our  faith 
grows  stronger.  This  apparently  is  the  secret  of 
the  emphasis  which  Jesus  laid  upon  the  importance 
of  great  earnestness  in  prayer.  Strangely  enough 
this  has  been  taken  by  many  good  people  to  mean 
that  if  we  will  only  be  importunate  enough  we 
can  force  God  to  answer  us;  that  we  can  worry 
Him  into  answering  us  as  the  importunate  widow 
worried  the  unjust  judge  into  answering  her.  But 
this  is  a  purely  pagan  idea  and  nothing  was  fur- 
ther from  the  Master's  thought  than  pagan  ideas. 
In  urging  us  to  be  importunate  Jesus  did  not  mean 
to  teach  us  that  God  was  like  that  unjust  judge — 
that  He  had  his  mind  on  other  matters  and  was  not 
interested  in  us  and  that  we  must  do  something  to 
stir  Him  up  and  force  Him  to  pay  attention  to  us. 
What  He  had  in  mind  was  not  the  Father's  in- 
difference, but  ours;  not  the  necessity  of  stirring 
Him  up  but  the  necessity  of  stirring  up  ourselves. 

In  other  instructions  Jesus  laid  emphasis  upon 
humility  in  prayer,  upon  the  importance  of  perfect 
agreement  in  spirit  and  purpose  when  we  pray  to- 
gether, and — as  I  have  already  pointed  out — the 
importance  of  making  our  requests  of  the  Father 
in  the  name  of  the  Son.  In  urging  agreement  in 
united  prayer  Jesus  gave  a  special  promise,  the  full 
significance  of  which  has  never  been  determined. 
It  is  certain,  however,  that  He  did  not  mean  what 
He  is  popularly  supposed  to  have  meant.     When 


The  Master's  Instructions  143 

He  assured  His  followers  that  if  two  of  them 
would  go  to  God  in  perfect  agreement,  God  would 
answer  their  petitions,  and  that  if  even  two  or 
three  of  them  would  gather  together  in  His  name 
to  pray  He  would  be  in  the  midst  of  them,  He  did 
not  mean  to  teach  that  the  problem  of  reaching 
and  moving  the  heart  of  God  in  a  particular  case 
depends  upon  the  amount  of  pressure  that  is 
brought  to  bear  upon  Him.  He  did  not  mean  to  say 
that  if  I  fail  to  secure  God's  attention  I  should  get 
two  or  three  good  people  to  pray  with  me.  God  is 
not  man.  If  we  wish  to  get  the  ear  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  we  may  find  it  necessary 
to  send  a  very  large  and  impressive  committee  to 
him,  but  God  is  different.  It  is  easy  to  conceive 
of  the  Father  passing  by  the  largest  and  most  im- 
pressive committee  ever  gathered  together  and 
stopping  to  listen  to  the  plea  of  a  poor  little  ragged 
boy  whose  big,  upturned  eyes  are  beaming  with 
confidence  and  love. 

Possibly  Jesus  was  thinking  of  the  wonderful 
help  which  harmony  among  men  has  always  proved 
to  be  in  bri'^ging  about  harmony  with  God.  When 
we  fall  into  harmony  with  God  nothing  is  easier 
than  to  fall  into  harmony  with  His  children: 
usually  indeed  we  find  that  the  act  of  falling  in 
with  Him  has  brought  us  into  harmony  with  them. 
And  while  the  converse  Is  not  altogether  true.  It  Is 
unquestionably  true  that  when  we  come  Into  har- 
mony with  our  fellow-men,  some  of  the  most  seri- 


144    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

ous  obstacles  which  are  between  us  and  God  dis- 
appear. If  two  men  agree  together  concerning 
something  which  they  desire  of  the  Father — if  their 
common  desire  has  drawn  them  together  not  only 
in  mind  but  in  spirit,  so  that  they  have  come  into 
perfect  harmony  with  each  other — in  a  word,  if 
they  are  ready  to  go  to  God  as  one — they  have 
taken  a  long  step  toward  getting  into  harmony 
with  God,  and  they  are  not  likely  to  go  to  Him  in 
vain.  When  I  see  two  brothers  going  to  their 
father  with  their  arms  around  each  other,  I  some- 
how feel  quite  sure  that  they  will  not  return  empty- 
handed. 


XII 

PRAYERS  GOD  WILL  NOT  ANSWER 


PERHAPS  nothing  that  has  been  taught 
about  prayer  has  been  more  widely  accepted 
than  the  strange  doctrine  so  persistently 
attributed  to  Jesus,  that  the  answer  to  prayer  de- 
pends wholly  upon  the  size  of  the  supplicant's 
faith.  This  strange  notion  apparently  owes  its 
popularity  partly  to  our  inherited  tendency  to  be- 
lieve in  magic,  and  partly  to  our  acquired  tendency 
to  interpret  the  sayings  of  Jesus  apart  from  their 
connection  and  without  regard  to  the  general  tenor 
of  His  teachings.  We  have  never  outgrown  our 
pagan  habit  of  attributing  the  power  that  belongs 
to  God  to  something  other  than  God.  We  no 
longer  believe  in  magic  wands  of  a  material  sort, 
but  multitudes  of  good  people  believe  in  the  power 
of  faith  just  as  their  ancestors  believed  in  the 
power  of  a  magic  wand.  And  as  everybody  knows 
we  are  still  holding  on  desperately  to  our  con- 
venient habit  of  taking  the  words  of  Jesus  to  mean 
what  they  say  on  their  face  without  going  to  the 
trouble  to  examine  them  in  connection  with  their 
surroundings  or  with  His  teachings  as  a  whole.  It 
is  so  much  easier  to  say,  "  Did  not  Jesus  assure  us 

145 


146    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

that  according  to  our  faith  it  would  be  unto  us  ?  '* 
and  let  the  matter  drop  with  that. 

Of  course  the  absurdity  of  the  idea  that  the 
answer  to  one's  prayers  depends  wholly  upon  the 
magnitude  of  one's  faith  lies  in  the  fact  that  it 
gives  to  faith  the  place  which  belongs  exclusively 
to  God.  If  it  means  anything  at  all  it  means  that 
God  has  surrendered  the  control  of  the  universe  to 
those  of  His  children  whose  faith  is  sufficiently 
powerful  to  run  it,  and  has  placed  Himself  at  their 
disposal  to  do  anything  that  they  may  want  done. 
Which  of  course  is  unthinkable.  If  God  should 
suddenly  become  an  indulgent  father  and  should 
say  to  us  that  henceforth  He  would  hold  Himself 
in  readiness  to  do  any  and  everything  we  might 
want  done,  the  whole  universe  would  go  to  pieces 
before  sunset. 

Plainly  then  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  God 
will  do  for  us  everything  that  we  ask,  provided 
we  ask  in  faith.  If  God  is  a  true  Father  He  is 
not  going  to  turn  over  the  "  Father's  house  "  (of 
Vx^hich  this  world  is  one  room)  or  any  part  of  it  to 
the  absolute  control  of  His  children.  And  if  He 
is  going  to  continue  in  charge  He  is  not  going  to 
do  everything  they  may  ask  Him  to  do.  Some 
prayers  He  will  answer  if  they  are  asked  in  faith 
and  in  accordance  with  the  other  conditions  which 
He  requires,  but  other  prayers  He  will  not  answer, 
no  matter  what  conditions  we  may  fulfill.  Being 
our  Father  He  will  no  more  give  us  everything  we 


Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer         147 

ask  for  than  we  who  are  fathers  will  give  to  our 
children  everything  they  may  ask  for.  The  fact 
that  little  Mary  comes  to  you  with  perfect  faith 
may  stir  your  heart  to  its  depths,  but  it  is  not  going 
to  stir  you  up  to  the  point  of  giving  her  the  pretty 
little  snake  she  has  just  seen  on  the  lawn  and  for 
which  she  is  begging  in  her  eloquent  baby  way. 

II 

When  an  Occidental  scientist  makes  a  general 
statement  that  may  possibly  be  misunderstood  he 
usually  pauses  to  point  out  the  conditions  modify- 
ing it  and  to  note  important  exceptions  to  it. 
When  an  Oriental  philosopher  states  a  general 
truth  to  Oriental  hearers  he  does  not  usually  find 
it  necessary  to  point  out  such  conditions  or  excep- 
tions: his  hearers  are  not  accustomed  to  scientific 
statements  that  are  complete  in  themselves  and 
they  will  interpret  his  words  by  his  other  teachings 
and  the  general  tenor  of  his  teachings.  A  scientist 
would  never  say  to  a  modern  American  audience, 
"  Ask  and  ye  shall  receive,"  or,  "  Whatsoever 
things  ye  ask,  believe  that  ye  do  receive  them  and 
ye  shall  have  them,"  without  stopping  to  explain 
what  he  meant ;  but  Jesus  could  utter  such  sayings 
to  His  Oriental  hearers  and  leave  them  to  reason 
out  the  matter  for  themselves,  as  they  were  in  the 
habit  of  doing.  An  Oriental  audience  would  as- 
sume that  what  He  meant  was  to  be  found  beneath 
the  surface,  and  His  more  thoughtful  hearers,  at 


148    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

least,  would  sooner  or  later  arrive  at  the  conclu- 
sion that  they  must  look  for  the  modifying  con- 
ditions in  other  teachings  which  had  come  or  might 
yet  come  from  His  lii)S.  And  by  and  by  they 
would  probably  decide  that  what  the  Master  meant 
was  that  if  men  would  pray  to  God  as  their  Father 
they  would  not  pray  in  vain;  that  God  answers 
the  prayers  of  men  as  a  good,  wise  and  loving  fa- 
ther answers  the  prayers  of  his  loving,  obedient 
children;  that  while  He  will  not  give  them  every- 
thing they  may  ask  for  He  will  nevertheless  an- 
swer them  as  a  Father;  that  if  they  will  ask  as 
loving,  obedient  children,  living  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  Him,  they  will  receive  that  which  will 
satisfy  them,  for  whatever  their  blundering  lips 
may  ask  for  they  will  really  desire  only  what  the 
Father  desires  to  give  them. 

Ill 

Because  God  is  our  Father  there  are  some 
prayers  which  we  may  be  sure  He  will  answer ;  but 
by  the  same  token  there  are  other  prayers  which  we 
may  be  just  as  sure  He  will  not  answer. 

As  I  have  said,  in  answering  our  prayers  the 
Father  must  be  true  to  Himself,  true  to  us  and  true 
to  His  other  children.  If  He  is  true  to  Himself — 
to  the  demands  of  His  own  moral  nature — He 
must  be  true  to  the  demands  of  His  kingdom; 
therefore  He  cannot,  in  order  to  gratify  us,  do  that 
which  would  be  contrary  to  such  demands  or  that 


Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer         149 

which  would  injuriously  affect  His  kingdom's  in- 
terests. No  matter  how  earnestly  or  with  how 
much  faith  we  may  pray,  He  is  not  going  to  im- 
peril the  future  of  His  kingdom.  And  that  means 
of  course  that  He  is  not  going  to  imperil  the  future 
of  its  citizens.  He  is  not  going  to  indulge  His 
children  in  a  present  pleasure  at  the  peril  of  their 
future  happiness.  He  will  not  give  us  that  which 
we  ask  with  selfish  desire,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  He  will  not  do  anything  that  may  encourage 
selfishness  and  thereby  imperil  our  souls.  He  will 
not  even  give  us  that  which  we  ask  unselfishly  if 
He  sees  that  it  may  tend  to  make  us  selfish.  HI 
ask  for  money  with  the  sincere  intention  of  using 
it  as  He  would  have  me  use  it.  He  is  not  going  to 
help  me  to  make  it  if  He  sees  that  I  would  be  likely 
to  change  my  mind  and  use  it  for  my  selfish  in- 
terests. If  I  ask  to  be  relieved  from  all  pain  so 
that  I  may  not  be  handicapped  in  the  work  He 
has  given  me,  He  is  not  going  to  take  the  pain 
away  if  He  sees  that  it  is  doing  more  good  than 
harm.  I  may  expect  Him  either  to  give  me  addi- 
tional strength  or  reduce  the  pain  so  that  I  can  go 
on  with  my  work,  but  I  must  not  expect  Him  to 
take  the  pain  away. 

If  God  must  be  true  to  Himself  He  must  be 
true  to  His  laws,  which  express  His  will.  He  may 
answer  our  prayers  through  the  operation  of  laws 
with  which  we  are  familiar  (which  we  call  natural 
laws),  or  He  may  answer  them  through  the  opera- 


150    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

tion  of  laws  which  are  beyond  nature  (and  which 
we  therefore  call  supernatural  laws),  but  He  will 
not  run  roughshod  over  any  of  His  laws,  natural 
or  supernatural.  To  illustrate,  there  is  a  law  that 
whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap. 
If  I  have  sown  thorns  I  shall  reap  thorns  and  all 
the  praying  I  can  do  will  not  move  God  to  put 
wheat  in  their  place.  I  may  look  to  Him  to  for- 
give me  for  sowing  thorns,  but  I  must  not  expect 
Him  to  save  me  from  the  consequences  of  such 
sowing.  That  law  is  as  necessary  to  the  spiritual 
world  as  it  is  to  the  material  world,  and  if  God 
should  set  it  aside  in  answer  to  our  prayers  and 
men  should  find  out  that  they  could  escape  the  con- 
sequences of  their  evil  acts  by  running  to  Him, 
they  would  plunge  headlong  into  sin  and  the  world 
would  soon  become  a  maelstrom  of  evil. 

If  God  must  be  true  to  us  He  cannot  imperil  our 
souls  by  giving  us  an  easy  time.  An  easy  time 
means  flabby  muscles;  it  means  that  Instead  of 
developing  toward  manhood  we  are  dropping  back 
toward  babyhood.  The  Idea  that  God  In  His  good- 
ness gives  some  people  an  easy  time  was  hoary 
with  age  In  the  days  of  Job,  and  it  still  shows  no 
sign  of  decay.  Even  In  this  materialistic  age, 
which  has  always  shown  an  obstinate  persistence 
in  attributing  to  nature  nearly  everything  that  was 
formerly  attributed  to  God — even  in  this  age  noth- 
ing is  more  common  than  to  hear  Smith  say  how 
good  God  was  to  Jones  in  giving  him  such  an  easy 


Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer        151 

time.  But  God  gives  no  man  an  easy  time.  Some 
men  take  it — take  it  by  shirking  the  duties  of  life 
— but  that  is  another  matter. 

And  of  course  God  is  not  going  to  vanswer  our 
prayers  in  a  way  that  would  encourage  us  to  take 
an  easy  time.  He  is  not  going  to  answer  my 
prayer  for  healing  if  I  dishonour  Him  by  lazily 
neglecting  to  use  the  means  He  has  already  given 
me  for  its  cure.  If  I  have  a  note  due  to-morrow 
and  go  off  on  a  picnic,  trusting  God  to  answer  my 
prayer  for  the  money  by  the  time  I  get  back,  I 
shall  not  find  a  check  to  cover  it  in  to-morrow*s 
mail.  I  shall  only  find  a  notice  that  my  note  has 
gone  to  protest.  And  when  I  go  to  God  about 
it  I  shall  find  that  I  have  discredited  myself  with 
Him  as  well  as  the  bank.  If  I  want  my  bank  to 
honour  my  requests  I  must  honour  its  rules,  and 
if  I  want  God  to  honour  my  requests  I  must  honour 
His  rules.  And  one  of  God's  rules  is  that  if  I  want 
His  help  in  an  emergency,  instead  of  going  off  on  a 
picnic,  I  must  stay  at  my  post  of  duty  and  make 
full  use  of  the  means  He  has  already  put  in  my 
hands  to  help  myself. 

If  God  will  not  give  us  an  easy  time  it  is  clear 
that  He  will  not  encourage  us  in  self-indulgence 
of  any  sort  and  therefore  He  will  not  answer  our 
prayers  for  luxuries.  God  designed  us  for  man- 
hood in  His  kingdom — high,  heroic  manhood — 
and  He  is  not  going  to  undertake  to  develop  His 
children  to  heroic  manhood  in  the  lap  of  luxury. 


152    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

Heroes  are  not  developed  in  that  way.  It  is  not 
strange  that  when  God  sent  His  Son  to  grow  up 
in  the  world  He  chose  for  Him  the  home  of  a  car- 
penter. And  if  He  did  not  choose  luxurious  sur- 
roundings for  His  Son  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  expect  Him  to  choose  luxurious  surround- 
ings for  us.  He  wants  us  to  become  men,  not  the 
soft,  spineless  weaklings  one  so  often  sees  in  homes 
where  children  are  coddled  in  padded  kiddy-coops, 
instead  of  being  taught  to  endure  hardness  as 
brave  little  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  pious  sentiment  so  often  heard  to  the  effect 
that  God  in  His  goodness  gave  old  Moneybags  a 
lap  of  luxury  to  lie  in,  is  a  serious  reflection  upon 
Divine  Providence.  God  gives  no  man  a  lap  of 
luxury  to  lie  in.  He  gives  men  power  to  make 
money  for  use  in  His  service  and  the  cause  of 
humanity,  and  when  a  man  uses  the  money  he  has 
made  in  fitting  out  a  lap  of  luxury,  to  the  neglect 
of  God  and  humanity,  he  is  guilty  of  misappropri- 
ating a  trust  fund,  and  it  does  not  advance  the 
glory  of  God  or  the  cause  of  truth  to  say  that  God 
did  it. 

IV 
If  the  Fatherhood  of  God  requires  Him  to  be 
true  to  us  it  requires  Him  to  be  true  to  the  rest  of 
His  children.  It  would  be  a  strange  father  who 
would  help  one  son  at  the  expense  of  another. 
Piety  does  not  save  us  from  doing  foolish  things 


Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer         153 

and  many  prayers  of  pious  people  have  gone  un- 
answered because  they  were  so  thoughtless  as  to 
ask  God  what  they  desired  without  stopping  to 
inquire  what  effect  His  answer  might  have  upon 
their  neighbours.  A  little  band  of  faithful  Chris- 
tians gather  together  daily  in  their  mountain  cove 
to  pray  for  rain.  The  rain  does  not  come,  and  by 
and  by  unbelievers  begin  to  scoff  and  the  faithful 
grow  discouraged  and  begin  to  ask  one  another  why 
God  should  dishonour  their  faith  and  make  them 
the  laughing-stock  of  their  wicked  neighbours. 
It  never  occurs  to  them  that  if  God  should  send 
them  the  great  downpour  they  have  been  praying 
for,  it  would  ruin  the  crops  of  hundreds  of  His 
children  down  in  the  valley,  whose  wheat  was  just 
ready  for  the  reaper.  God  does  not  dishonour  our 
faith  in  Him,  but  we  might  as  well  understand 
that  He  is  not  going  to  send  the  rain  we  are  pray- 
ing for  to  save  our  corn  if  we  don't  care  a  fig  what 
becomes  of  our  neighbour's  wheat. 

God  will  not  answer  our  prayers  at  our  neigh- 
bour's expense.  He  will  not  rob  Peter  to  pay  Paul. 
The  farmer  who  thanked  God  for  answering  his 
prayers  for  rain  that  saved  his  crop  but  destroyed 
the  crops  of  a  hundred  good  men  far  down  the 
valley,  was  labouring  under  a  misapprehension. 
Instead  of  crediting  God  with  a  good  deed  he  at- 
tributed to  Him  a  deed  which  any  honest  man 
would  have  been  ashamed  of.  God  did  not  send 
that  rain  in  answer  to  his  selfish  prayer;  it  came 


154    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

in  accordance  with  certain  laws — God's  laws,  it  is 
true,  but  laws  which  were  established,  not  to 
gratify  one  farmer's  selfish  desires,  but  for  the  ben- 
efit of  the  race  as  a  whole. 

But  this  is  not  all.  God  will  not  answer  a  prayer 
that  will  require  Him  to  violate  a  human  being's 
moral  nature.  He  made  us  moral  beings  with  the 
power  to  choose  between  good  and  evil — and  He 
will  not  do  anything  in  violation  of  the  nature  He 
has  given  us.  Having  given  John  the  power  to 
choose  between  good  and  evil,  He  cannot,  in  an- 
swer to  our  prayers,  take  this  power  out  of  John's 
hands  and  force  him  to  be  good.  If  John  is  going 
to  the  dogs  we  may  pray  to  God  to  save  him,  but 
we  need  not  expect  God  to  take  him  by  force  and 
make  him  a  good  boy.  We  may  look  to  Him  to 
help  us  bring  John  to  his  senses,  to  make  him  see 
the  error  of  his  way  more  clearly,  to  surround 
him  with  gracious  influences  that  will  help  a  boy 
to  turn  from  the  downward  path  if  he  has  the 
slightest  desire  to  turn,  but  He  cannot  step  in  and 
take  away  John's  power  to  choose,  and  choose  for 
him. 

God  cannot  force  us  to  turn  from  evil  and 
choose  good.  I  am  aware  that  many  good  people 
like  to  point  to  Paul's  conversion  as  an  exception. 
But  Paul's  conversion  was  not  an  exception. 
Christ  did  not  convert  Paul  against  his  will.  He 
shed  a  vast  flood  of  light  upon  him  and  gave  him  a 
wonderful  vision  that  brought  him  to  his  senses 


Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer         155 

and  made  him  see  the  folly  of  his  course,  but  He 
did  not  overpower  him  and  turn  him  round:  He 
simply  opened  his  eyes  to  his  situation  and  let  him 
choose  for  himself.  And  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
Christ  had  already  chosen  him,  Paul  chose  for 
himself.  He  no  more  destroyed  Paul's  power  to 
choose  for  himself  by  choosing  him  first,  than  a 
man  destroys  the  power  of  the  woman  he  would 
marry  to  choose  for  herself  by  choosing  her  first. 

V 

Will  God  have  anything  to  do  with  prayer  tests  ? 
Will  He  answer  a  prayer  that  is  offered  just  to  see 
if  He  will  answer  it?  If  a  Christian  should  accept 
a  challenge  from  unbelievers  to  prove  that  God 
answers  prayer  and  should  publicly  pray  for  rain, 
would  God  be  under  obligations  to  send  rain? 

No.  And  for  at  least  two  reasons.  In  the  first 
place,  no  one  could  really  pray  under  such  circum- 
stances. One  might  beg  but  one  could  not  pray. 
However  sincere  one  might  be,  one  could  not  ap- 
proach such  a  test  in  the  spirit  of  prayer.  Instead 
of  approaching  God  as  a  loving,  obedient  child 
approaches  a  father,  he  would  go  to  Him  as  a  man 
who  had  made  a  wager  on  God  and  was  depending 
upon  Him  to  help  him  win.  He  would  go  saying 
in  his  heart:  "  These  people  don't  believe  that  you 
can  answer  prayer  and  I  have  risked  everything  on 
proving  that  you  can.  So  stand  by  me,  and  when 
I  pray  for  rain  send  a  downpour." 


156    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  t 

If  prayer  is  an  effort  to  place  ourselves  at  God*s 
disposal,  how  can  we  pray  when  we  have  placed 
ourselves  in  a  position  which  demands  that  God 
shall  place  Himself  at  our  disposal? 

In  the  second  place,  if  it  were  possible  to  really 
pray  under  such  circumstances  it  would  be  foolish 
to  expect  God  to  set  aside  His  will  and  look  to  us 
for  orders.  Even  a  human  father  would  not  do 
that.  My  father  did  it  for  me  in  childish  play,  but 
it  was  only  when  I  was  too  young  to  know  that  a 
child  cannot  give  his  father  orders.  If  when  I 
was  older  I  had  gone  to  him  and  told  him  that  I 
had  made  a  bet  that  he  would  give  me  anything  I 
might  ask  for,  and  that  he  must  place  himself  at 
my  command  and  be  ready  to  answer  when  I  call 
— if  I  had  gone  to  him  in  that  spirit  he  might  have 
given  me  something,  but  not  what  I  asked  for. 
More  likely  it  would  have  been  a  whipping. 

Of  course  somebody  is  thinking  of  Elijah.  If 
it  was  right  for  Elijah  to  propose  a  prayer  test 
why  should  it  be  wrong  for  us  ?  To  this  I  answer, 
first,  that  Elijah  did  not  propose  a  prayer  test. 
The  question  before  the  people  was  not  whether 
they  should  pray  or  not^  but  whether  they  should 
serve  God  or  Baal,  and  Elijah's  proposal  was  a 
test  to  decide  between  the  two.  In  the  second 
place,  even  admitting  for  the  sake  of  the  argu- 
ment that  it  was  a  prayer  test,  it  does  not  follow 
that  God  would  take  part  in  a  prayer  test  to-day 
unless  we  should  go  to  Him  in  Elijah's  spirit  and 


Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer         157 

in  an  emergency  of  equal  significance.  If  some 
terrible  moral  cataclysm  should  overtake  the  race 
and  the  worship  of  the  true  God  was  in  danger  of 
being  blotted  out  of  the  world,  and  a  man  of  Eli- 
jah's faith  and  spirit  should  go  to  God  for  help,  it 
is  possible  that  God  would  consent  to  take  part  in 
a  test  designed  to  rally  the  dying  faith  of  human- 
ity. But  what  resemblance  can  one  see  between 
this  hypothetical  case  and  such  prayer  tests  as  have 
been  proposed  in  modern  times  by  unbelievers  who 
have  never  so  much  as  pretended  to  care  whether 
humanity's  faith  was  dying  or  not  ? 

Of  all  the  puerile  ideas  that  have  accumulated 
around  the  subject  of  prayer  none  is  more  absurd 
than  this  idea  of  settling  the  question  of  prayer  by 
a  test.  If  I  wish  to  know  whether  my  father  really 
loves  me,  do  I  take  him  to  some  expert  chemist 
and  have  him  subjected  to  a  chemical  test  for  love? 
That  would  be  an  impossible  test.  If  I  want  to 
know  whether  my  father  is  influenced  by  the  plead- 
ings of  his  children,  do  I  take  him  to  a  mathema- 
tician and  subject  him  to  a  mathematical  test? 
Five  times  a  day  my  father  does  what  his  children 
ask  him  to  do;  twenty-five  times  a  day  he  refuses 
to  do  what  they  ask  him  to  do.  Four  times  out 
of  five,  the  mathematician  tells  me,  my  father  re- 
fuses to  do  what  his  children  want  him  to  do. 
Does  this  settle  the  question?  Does  it  prove  that 
my  father  is  or  is  not  influenced  by  the  prayers  of 
his  children?    And  as  a  mathematical  test  is  im- 


158    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

possible  in  settling  the  question  whether  my  father 
on  earth  is  influenced  by  his  children's  pleadings, 
is  it  not  just  as  impossible  as  a  test  in  settling  the 
question  whether  my  Father  in  heaven  is  influenced 
by  the  pleadings  of  His  children  on  earth?  The 
question  of  prayer  is  a  question  of  love,  and  you 
cannot  settle  a  question  of  love  by  mathematics 
any  more  than  you  can  analyze  a  mother's  heart 
in  a  chemist's  laboratory. 

VI 

It  would  hardly  seem  necessary  to  add  that  God 
will  not  answer  the  prayers  of  an  impenitent  man. 
He  will  not  answer  the  prayers  of  a  man  who  is  not 
sorry  for  his  sins,  whether  he  is  a  criminal  or  only 
a  proud,  self-satisfied  Pharisee  who  thanks  God 
that  he  is  not  as  other  men.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  God  will  not  come  to  the  help  of  the  impeni- 
tent: He  is  still  sending  His  sunshine  and  rain 
upon  the  unjust  as  well  as  upon  the  just:  but  I  do 
mean  to  say  that  He  will  not  come  to  the  help  of 
an  impenitent  man  in  answer  to  his  prayers.  So 
long  as  God  is  our  Father  we  have  no  right  to 
expect  Him  to  answer  the  prayers  of  a  man  who 
is  so  entirely  out  of  harmony  with  Him  that  he 
does  not  care  to  get  into  harmony  with  Him.  If 
your  son  John  should  fall  out  of  harmony  with 
you  and  should  not  care  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  you,  and  should  send  Robert  to  you  to  ask  for 
what  he  wanted,  he  would  send  in  vain — unless 


Prayers  God  Will  Not  Answer         159 

you  were  a  very  foolish  and  indulgent  father.  A 
wise  father  will  answer  his  son,  but  he  will  not 
answer  an  ex-son.  He  will  not  answer  a  boy  who 
has  despised  his  sonship  and  broken  away  from  it 
and  who  refuses  to  recognize  his  father  as  any- 
thing more  than  a  possible  source  of  supply.  I  do 
not  say  that  he  will  do  nothing  for  him:  he  will 
do  something  for  him,  but  he  will  not  answer  his 
prayers.  There  is  but  one  answer  you  will  send 
to  John  and  that  is  that  if  he  wants  anything  from 
you  he  must  come  to  you  for  it.  Which  of  course 
means  that  the  ugly  breach  between  you  must  be 
closed  up ;  that  he  must  recognize  you  as  his  father 
and  come  back  into  harmony  with  you  as  your  son. 
Under  no  other  conditions  can  you  safely  give 
him  what  he  wants.  If  you  should  honour  his 
request  through  Robert  you  would  dishonour  your 
own  fatherhood,  weaken  your  authority  and  in- 
fluence as  a  father,  confirm  John  in  his  unnatural 
and  perilous  course,  and  encourage  a  situation 
which  would  utterly  demoralize  and  eventually 
destroy  your  home. 

So  it  would  be  in  the  Father's  House  (of  which, 
as  I  have  said,  this  world  is  one  room)  if  God 
should  lay  aside  His  infinite  goodness,  wisdom  and 
love,  and  as  an  indulgent  father  answer  the  re- 
quests that  come  to  Him  from  unnatural  children 
who  are  so  far  out  of  harmony  with  Him  that 
they  don't  care  to  have  anything  to  do  with  Him  as 
their  Father  and  will  not  recognize  Him  except  as 
a  possible  source  of  supply. 


XIII 

PRAYERS  GOD  WILL  ANSWER 

I 

BECAUSE  God  must  be  true  to  Himself, 
true  to  us  and  true  to  the  rest  of  His  chil- 
dren, there  are  some  prayers  which  He 
will  not  and  cannot  answer.  But  by  the  same 
token  there  are  other  prayers  which  He  will  and 
must  answer. 

God  must  make  such  answers  to  the  petitions  of 
His  children  as  are  demanded  by  His  own  nature 
and  by  His  own  will  and  plans  for  His  kingdom 
and  for  His  children.  The  infinite  goodness  of 
God  necessarily  makes  Him  the  friend  of  all  good 
and  the  enemy  of  all  evil.  He  cannot  ignore  any 
sincere  call  that  may  be  made  upon  Him  to  come 
to  the  help  of  one  who  is  struggling  to  overcome 
sin.  If  therefore  I  have  definitely  taken  my  stand 
with  Him  and  am  sincerely  praying  for  that  which 
will  help  me  to  overcome  sin,  I  may  be  sure  that 
my  petition  is  in  harmony  with  His  will  and  there- 
fore will  be  granted.  If  I  want  my  sins  forgiven, 
if  I  want  a  pure  heart,  if  I  want  light  upon  my 
pathway  that  I  may  walk  according  to  His  will, 

1 60 


Prayers  God  Will  Answer  i6l 

if  I  want  strength  to  go  forward — to  overcome  the 
obstacles  that  evil  has  placed  in  my  way,  to  achieve 
my  high  destiny  as  a  son  of  God — I  do  not  have 
to  submit  the  matter  to  His  judgment  or  will:  the 
question  has  been  forever  settled  by  the  demands 
of  His  nature.  If  the  Father  is  infinitely  good  it 
is  bound  to  be  His  will  that  we  should  have  that 
which  would  help  us  to  triumph  over  evil.  We  do 
not  honour  God  when  we  ask  Him  to  forgive  our 
sins  if  it  is  His  will ;  rather  we  dishonour  Him.  It 
is  as  if  a  child  in  peril  of  his  life  should  cry  to  his 
father  to  come  to  his  help  and  should  add:  "  That 
is,  if  you  really  want  to  help  me." 

The  fact  that  God  is  our  Father  insures  an  an- 
swer to  many  prayers  that  are  made  in  the  spirit 
of  a  loving,  obedient  child.  It  is  not  an  open  ques- 
tion with  me  whether  I  shall  provide  for  my  chil- 
dren's needs:  as  a  father  I  may  not  provide  for 
what  they  imagine  to  be  their  needs,  but  I  cannot 
refuse  to  provide  for  what  I  know  to  be  their  needs. 
So  if  I  go  to  God  as  my  Father  I  may  be  sure  that 
whatever  I  may  ask  for — if  my  heart  is  right  with 
His  heart — if  I  speak  to  Him  as  a  loving,  obedient 
child — He  will  treat  me  as  a  loving  and  wise  father 
treats  a  loving  and  obedient  child :  He  will  give  me 
that  which  is  best  for  me. 

This  does  not  mean  that  God  will  always  help 
me  In  the  same  way  that  I  help  my  children.  If 
my  child  is  in  physical  peril  I  must  rescue  him. 
It  is  one  of  my  duties  as  a  physical  father  to  look 


1 62    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

after  the  physical  welfare  of  my  children.  But 
the  heavenly  Father  is  looking  after  the  welfare  of 
our  spirits — our  essential,  immortal  selves — and 
while  He  cares  for  our  bodies  it  is  for  the  sake  of 
our  spirits,  and  therefore  He  will  not  hesitate  to 
sacrifice  our  bodies  for  our  spirits.  If  it  is  neces- 
sary for  the  development  of  my  spiritual  manhood 
that  I  should  suffer,  God  is  not  going  to  shield  me 
from  suffering.  If  it  is  best  for  my  eternal  wel- 
fare that  I  should  give  up  this  present  physical 
life — if  for  instance  I  should  to-day  find  myself 
at  a  point  where  I  must  deny  Christ  or  die — God 
is  not  going  to  shield  me  from  death.  He  did  not 
deny  the  privilege  of  martyrdom  to  the  saints  of 
old :  why  should  He  deny  me  ? 

II 

In  answering  the  requests  of  his  children  a  fa- 
ther is  governed  not  only  by  the  demands  of  his 
moral  character  but  by  the  interests  of  his  home 
and  the  welfare  of  his  children,  both  individually 
and  collectively.  So  in  answering  our  prayers  God 
is  governed  not  only  by  the  demands  of  His  na- 
ture but  by  the  interests  of  His  kingdom  and  the 
welfare  of  His  children,  both  individually  and  col- 
lectively. If  this  is  true  then  we  may  be  sure  that 
when  we  are  sincerely  and  unselfishly  seeking  the 
interests  of  God's  kingdom  we  are  in  harmony 
with  His  will  and  that  He  will  not  ignore  our  re- 
quests.   If  our  hearts  are  set  upon  the  spread  of 


Prayers  God  Will  Answer  163 

God's  kingdom  in  our  community,  He  will  answer 
our  prayers  just  as  far  as  He  can  without  violat- 
ing the  moral  nature  of  the  people  of  the  com- 
munity. He  cannot  force  people  to  be  good,  but 
He  can  and  will  set  to  work  influences  which  will 
help  men  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  truth.  We  need 
not  ask  Him  to  spread  the  Gospel  in  our  commu- 
nity without  our  aid,  but  we  may  ask  Him  to  use  us 
in  spreading  it. 

I  have  said  that  God  will  not  answer  our  prayers 
for  luxuries,  for  the  reason  that  He  has  set  His 
heart  upon  developing  us  to  the  highest  manhood. 
But  for  this  same  reason  we  may  confidently  ex- 
pect God  to  answer  our  prayers  for  the  necessaries 
of  life.  So  far  as  we  can  see  God  made  this  world 
for  humanity's  gymnasium  or  training  school.  We 
are  here  to  be  developed  to  manhood — to  spiritual 
manhood,  the  manhood  of  the  sons  of  God.  It  is 
foolish  to  imagine  that  God  would  defeat  His  pur- 
pose by  indulging  us  in  luxuries,  but  it  is  not  less 
foolish  to  imagine  that  He  would  defeat  His  pur- 
pose by  refusing  to  provide  for  our  necessities. 
So  long  as  it  is  important  that  we  should  remain 
in  the  present  life,  and  we  are  living  in  harmony 
with  His  will,  we  may  confidently  expect  Him  to 
answer  our  prayers  for  the  necessaries  of  life.  Not 
for  what  a  luxury-loving  age  has  learned  to  re- 
gard as  the  necessaries  of  life.  Naturally  there 
must  be  a  considerable  difference  between  God's 
views  on  this  point  and  the  view  of  an  age  that 


164    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

insists  upon  including  pleasure  automobiles  and 
evening  gowns  in  its  budgets  of  necessary  expenses. 

Again,  if  we  are  devoting  ourselves  wholly  to 
God — if  we  are  doing  for  His  kingdom  and  for 
our  fellow-men  what  He  wants  us  to  do,  we  may 
expect  Him  to  answer  our  prayers  for  the  help 
we  need  in  our  work.  This  does  not  mean  that 
He  will  fall  in  with  our  plans  and  help  us  accord- 
ing to  our  own  ideas:  He  may  choose  to  overturn 
our  plans  and  help  us  in  ways  that  do  not  appeal 
to  our  judgment;  but  He  will  help  us.  It  is  in- 
conceivable that  the  Father  should  fail  His  chil- 
dren in  their  extremity.  It  is  inconceivable  that 
He  should  leave  us  to  make  bricks  without  straw, 
to  work  in  the  dark  where  light  is  necessary,  to  go 
on  day  after  day  without  food  or  water,  to  lift  a 
log  alone  when  we  are  only  strong  enough  to  lift 
one  end  of  it.  Nevertheless  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  the  most  eloquent  prayer  for  help  to 
lift  a  log  comes  from  the  man  who  is  struggling  to 
lift  his  own  end,  and  not  from  the  man  who  re- 
fuses to  take  off  his  coat  until  he  can  see  help  com- 
ing. 

All  this  of  course  is  but  another  way  of  saying 
that  God  will  give  His  children  everything  that  we 
who  are  fathers  would  give  our  children  if  we 
were  as  powerful  and  wise  and  good  and  loving 
as  He.  I  am  trying  to  give  my  children  good 
gifts.  If  I  had  the  Father's  power  *I  would  go 
further.     I  would  give  them  the  best  gifts.    .    .    •> 


Prayers  God  Will  Answer  165 

There  are  other  prayers  which  God  will  answer, 
but  they  are  all  embraced  under  the  general  rule 
which  I  have  tried  to  illustrate.  God  will  answer 
every  prayer  that  He  can  answer  as  our  Father — 
as  an  infinitely  powerful,  good,  wise  and  loving 
Father.  If  we  are  uncertain  about  a  particular 
petition  we  have  only  to  lay  it  by  the  side  of  this 
rule.  Take  for  example  our  prayer  for  rain.  Will 
God  answer  our  prayers  for  rain  ?  The  rule  gives 
us  the  answer:  He  will,  provided  He  can  do  so  as 
our  Father.  If  He  can  give  us  rain  and  at  the 
same  time  be  true  to  Himself,  to  us,  and  to  our 
fellow-men,  we  shall  have  rain ;  otherwise  we  shall 
not  have  it,  no  matter  what  the  circumstances  may 
be. 

As  our  Father,  God  requires  us  to  go  to  Him 
in  the  spirit  of  a  true  child — the  spirit  in  which 
His  Son  would  go  to  Him.  If  we  go  to  Him  in 
this  spirit  and  ask  for  rain,  and  He  can  give  it  to 
us  without  violating  the  demands  of  His  own  na- 
ture, or  interfering  with  His  plans  for  His  king- 
dom or  for  humanity  as  a  whole — if  He  can  do  so 
with  due  regard  to  our  eternal  interests  and  to 
the  welfare  of  our  neighbours — we  may  be  sure 
that  He  will  answer  our  prayer.  The  fact  that 
science  did  not  know  fifty  years  ago  how  a  heav- 
ier-than-air  flying  machine  could  be  made  to  fly, 
and  laughed  at  the  idea  as  absurd,  did  not  keep  the 
Wrights  from  inventing  a  heavier-than-air  flying 
machine.      Science  has  discovered  that  the  ma- 


l66    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

chinery  of  nature  is  provided  with  many  wonder- 
ful means  for  meeting  the  needs  of  plants  and 
animals  in  great  emergencies  or  exigencies:  surely 
if  God  has  made  such  provision  for  mere  plants 
and  animals  it  would  be  foolish  to  insist  that  He 
has  not  done  as  much  for  His  own  children.  If 
we  should  go  to  God  for  rain  in  accordance  with 
the  conditions  which  Christ  requires,  and  it  should 
happen  to  be  a  case  in  which  God  could  answer  us 
without  being  untrue  either  to  Himself  or  to  us 
or  to  our  fellow-men,  I  can  see  no  reason  in  any- 
thing that  is  known  to  science  why  He  should  not 
answer  our  prayer. 

One  might  as  well  admit,  however,  that  this  is  a 
large  "  if."  No  doubt  it  is  possible  for  men  and 
women  to  come  together  in  a  purely  unselfish  spirit 
and  with  great  faith  to  pray  for  rain,  having  the 
Father's  will  and  interests  foremost  and  desiring 
the  welfare  of  their  fellow-men  above  their  own 
gain;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  don't  usually 
come  together  in  that  way.  I  have  known  many 
good  men  and  women  to  go  to  church  to  pray  for 
rain,  but  I  have  never  known  one  of  them  to  carry 
an  umbrella.  Only  little  children  ever  suggest 
carrying  an  umbrella.  Nor  have  I  ever  known  a 
public  prayer  for  rain  to  be  preceded  by  a  serious 
inquiry  into  what  effect  a  downpour  might  have 
on  the  crops  of  the  people  living  farther  down  the 
river.  In  a  time  of  drouth  we  don't  think  of  our 
neighbours'  crops  farther  down  the  river. 


Prayers  God  Will  Answer  167 

This  no  doubt  is  the  main  secret  of  the  failure 
of  most  of  our  spectacular  community  praying. 
Our  united  community  prayers  are  not  answered 
because  our  community  does  not  unite  in  prayer. 
We  have  heard  much  of  the  united  prayers  of 
Christian  America  for  a  sick  or  wounded  presi- 
dent, but  there  is  no  evidence  that  Christian  Amer- 
ica ever  united  in  prayer  for  anybody.  It  is  only 
a  pious  fiction,  like  the  grave  assurance  occasion- 
ally given  us  in  the  newspapers  that  "  the  nation 
mourns."  The  assurance  that  the  nation  mourns 
is  not  given  us  as  a  statement  of  fact ;  it  is  put  in 
type  before  the  editor  has  a  chance  to  find  out 
whether  the  nation  is  mourning  or  not,  and  at  best 
is  only  a  delicate  hint  that  the  nation  is  expected 
to  do  the  proper  thing.  Here  and  there  a  few 
devout  folk  pray  and  a  few  sympathetic  people 
mourn,  but  Christian  America  as  a  whole  is  never 
still  long  enough  to  either  pray  or  mourn. 

Ill 

We  are  often  told  that  if  it  is  God's  will  to  do 
this  or  that  particular  thing  for  us  it  will  be  done, 
and  that  therefore  the  only  important  business 
before  us  when  we  would  pray  is  to  select  for  our 
petitions  such  things  as  are  most  likely  to  ac- 
cord with  His  will.  But  God  does  not  will  to  do 
this  or  that  particular  thing  for  us;  He  wills  to 
do  certain  things  for  us  on  certain  conditions,  and 
a  very  important  part  of  the  business  before  us  is 


l68    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

to  inquire  whether  we  have  fulfilled  the  conditions. 
That  half-grown  tree,  lying  yonder  uprooted  upon 
the  ground,  may  safely  assure  itself  that  it  is  God's 
vnll  that  it  should  resume  its  growth,  but  it  may 
pray  until  doomsday  and  it  will  never  begin  to 
grow  again  if  it  does  not  return  to  its  place  where 
it  can  get  back  into  harmony  with  law  and  thus 
meet  the  essential  conditions  of  growth.  So  with 
the  man  who  is  out  of  harmony  with  God's  will 
and  has  stopped  growing  toward  true  manhood — 
the  manhood  of  a  son  of  God.  Unquestionably  it 
is  God's  will  that  he  should  resume  his  growth,  but 
he  may  pray  until  his  breath  fails  and  he  will  never 
add  a  hair's  breadth  to  his  spiritual  stature  if  he 
does  not  return  to  his  post  of  duty  and  get  back 
into  harmony  with  the  will  of  God,  which  alone 
makes  growth  possible. 

The  little  plant  in  my  cellar  is  daily  reaching 
out  in  supplication  toward  the  light  in  harmony 
with  law,  and  every  day  its  prayers  are  answered. 
Every  day  it  adds  something  to  its  stature.  But 
suppose  on  to-morrow  it  should  suddenly  become 
human  and  self-willed,  and  in  a  fit  of  obstinacy 
should  turn  away  from  the  light  and  insist  upon 
pushing  its  way  back  Into  the  dark.  And  suppose 
it  should  back  its  efforts  with  prayer.  Suppose  it 
could  pray  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels. 
How  far  would  it  go  ?  What  good  would  its  pray- 
ing do? 

Prayer  is  worth  while  only  as  we  use  it  in  har- 


Prayers  God  Will  Answer  169 

mony  with  the  will  of  God.  The  moment  we  fall 
out  of  harmony  with  that  will — ^the  moment  we 
insist  upon  going  in  the  opposite  direction — it  be- 
comes worthless.  The  united  prayers  of  the  whole 
Christian  world  cannot  help  my  little  cellar  plant 
to  grow  if  it  insists  upon  turning  away  from  the 
light ;  nor  can  they  help  me  to  grow  if  I  insist  upon 
turning  away  from  The  Light. 

Coming  into  harmony  with  the  will  or  law  of 
God  makes  our  growth  possible  because  in  harmo- 
nizing with  Him  we  come  in  contact  with  Him.  In 
other  words  we  come  in  contact  with  the  Source 
of  Supply.  But  let  us  make  no  mistake.  Contact 
with  the  Source  of  Supply  does  not  mean  free  ac- 
cess to  all  the  supplies  we  desire :  it  only  means  free 
access  to  the  supplies  we  need.  If  an  uprooted 
lily  should  be  put  back  into  its  place  and  thus 
brought  into  harmony  with  law,  it  would  be  in 
contact  with  its  sources  of  supply,  but  it  would  not 
have  free  access  to  all  the  supplies  it  might  desire. 
It  would  only  have  access  to  the  supplies  it  would 
need  to  achieve  its  destiny  as  a  lily.  It  might  con- 
ceive a  desire  to  bring  forth  roses,  and  it  might 
pray  eloquently  and  fervently  for  the  elements  in 
the  soil  and  air  and  light  which  it  would  need  in 
order  to  blossom  roses,  but  no  rose  would  ever 
blossom.  So,  however  perfectly  we  may  come  into 
harmony  with  God's  law,  we  shall  not  have  access 
to  all  the  supplies  we  desire;  we  shall  only  have 
access  to  those  supplies  which  we  shall  need  to 


1 70    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

achieve  our  destiny  as  men — sons  of  God.  I  have 
no  assurance  that  God  will  make  me  rich  if  I  want 
to  become  a  philanthropist.  I  cannot  be  sure  that 
He  will  make  me  eloquent  if  I  want  to  proclaim 
the  Good  News  of  His  Son.  I  cannot  be  sure 
that  He  will  make  me  a  poet  if  I  want  to  write 
hymns  of  praise  for  His  worship.  But  I  may  be 
absolutely  sure  that  He  is  ready  to  supply  me  with 
everything  I  shall  need  to  achieve  my  destiny  as  a 
son  of  God. 


XIV 

PRAYING  TO  BE  HEALED 

I 
"^^^V  NE  of  the  best  women  I  ever  knew  was 
1        m    ^  sufferer  for  twenty  years,  and  though 

^^--^  she  prayed  without  ceasing  she  never 
got  any  relief  until  she  died/* 

"  What  I  can't  understand  is  that  God  should 
bless  so  many  worthless  people  with  good  health 
and  allow  the  best  man  I  have  ever  known  to  be 
sick  half  of  his  time.'* 

"  The  Christian  people  of  America  prayed  for 
President  Garfield  and  he  died.  They  prayed  for 
President  McKinley  and  he  died.  Surely  if  there 
were  anything  in  prayer " 

"  I  used  to  believe  in  God,  but  since  I  have  suf- 
fered so  much  I  don't  believe  any  more.  There  is 
my  daughter  Jane.  Jane  would  give  her  life  to 
save  me  from  suffering.  If  there  is  a  God  why 
doesn't  He  pity  me  like  Jane?  " 

And  so  on  and  so  on.  Everywhere  it  is  the 
same  old  story.  Everywhere  it  is  the  same  old 
question.  Since  the  day  that  pain  first  entered  the 
world  there  has  never  been  a  time  when  men  did 
not  thrust  their  noses  into  one  another's  face  and 
ask  why.     Why  did  God  let  pain  come  into  the 

171 


172    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

world?  Why  didn't  He  make  people  so  that  they 
would  not  suffer?  How  could  a  good  God  allow 
His  creatures  to  suffer  ? 

Humanity  has  always  been  perplexed  over  the 
problem  of  suffering.  And  it  has  always  been  more 
or  less  querulous  and  petulant  about  it.  Go  where 
you  will  and  the  moment  you  approach  a  scene  of 
suffering  you  will  become  conscious  that  the  at- 
mosphere is  growing  heavy  with  mystery.  And  it 
is  seldom  a  mystery  that  awes  you:  the  sufferer 
may  be  awed  but  the  rest  of  us  are  only  perplexed 
and  annoyed.  There  is  something  about  the  sight 
of  pain  that  upsets  us.  We  grow  impatient  and 
querulous.  Something  has  gone  wrong  and  some- 
body is  to  blame.  And  in  our  petulance  we  like 
to  indulge  our  suspicions.  No  doubt  the  sick  man 
himself  is  partly  to  blame.  And  then  there  are 
his  ancestors:  probably  they  had  something  to  do 
with  it.  And  then  there  is  God.  Somehow  we 
can't  keep  back  the  suspicion  that  it  all  goes  back 
at  last  to  God. 

In  an  immortal  document  a  master  thinker  of 
ancient  times  has  left  on  record  the  not  immodest 
claim  that  although  when  he  was  a  child  he  '*  spake 
as  a  child "  and  "  understood  as  a  child "  and 
"  thought  as  a  child,"  when  he  became  a  man  he 
"put  away  childish  things."  I  don't  think  I  ever 
realized  the  full  significance  of  this  frank  state- 
ment until  I  happened  one  day  to  set  over  against 
humanity's  petulant  questions  about  suffering  the 


Praying  to  Be  Healed  173 

record  of  this  master  thinker's  own  sufferings  and- 
his  heroic  utterances  in  regard  to  them.  The 
world  has  progressed  in  many  ways  since  Paul's 
day,  but  when  it  comes  to  clear  thinking  in  the 
realm  of  the  spirit  it  is  still  far  behind  that  sturdy- 
minded  Jew.  In  the  sphere  of  matter  we  are  think- 
ing like  men,  but  in  the  realm  of  the  spirit  we 
show  no  sign  of  having  put  away  childish  things. 
When  Paul  thought  of  pain  he  thought  as  a  man 
— a  man  who  could  hold  his  hand  in  a  flame  with- 
out wincing,  if  need  be.  When  the  world  of  to- 
day thinks  of  pain  it  thinks  like  a  child — like  a 
child  who  is  still  smarting  from  his  first  spanking. 

Ever  since  science  set  about  the  ambitious  task 
of  reducing  human  suffering  to  a  minimum  we 
have  been  basing  all  our  reasoning  about  suffer- 
ing upon  the  childish  assumption  that  it  is  an  evil 
— an  unnecessary  evil  for  which  somebody  other 
than  ourselves  is  mainly  to  blame.  Some  of  our 
sufferings  we  charge  to  our  ancestors,  some  to  our 
neighbours,  some  to  God,  and  a  few  to  ourselves; 
but  in  most  of  our  thinking  on  the  subject  there 
is,  as  I  have  said,  an  undercurrent  of  suspicion 
that  the  blame  for  them  all  goes  back  at  last  to 
God.  That  at  any  rate  is  what  we  usually  mean 
when  in  the  presence  of  great  suffering  we  shake 
our  heads  and  say  mournfully,  "  I  can't  under- 
stand it."  It  is  simply  a  delicate  way  of  saying 
that  we  don't  understand  why  God  did  it. 

It  was   inevitable   that  the  race   should  have 


1 74    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

started  out  with  the  theory  that  all  suffering  is 
evil — as  inevitable  as  it  was  that  our  little  John 
should  start  out  with  it.  And  it  was  just  as  in- 
evitable that  it  should  have  quickly  reached  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  something  for  which  some- 
body or  something  other  than  ourselves  is  mainly 
to  blame.  Little  children  are  given  to  sage  re- 
marks, but  I  have  never  known  a  little  child  who 
had  just  bumped  his  head  against  the  floor  to  rise 
with  the  remark  that  it  was  his  own  fault  and  that 
it  would  do  him  good.  To  the  child's  mind  pain 
is  something  that  comes  from  without,  therefore 
something  which  should  be  charged  to  somebody 
or  something  other  than  himself.  Why  should  he 
punish  himself  for  falling  upon  the  floor?  Why 
should  he  not  punish  the  floor  for  flying  up  and  hit- 
ting him? 

Nearly  all  of  our  reasoning  about  suffering  that 
begins  with  "  I  can't  understand  why,"  etc.,  is 
simply  a  translation  into  adult  speech  of  the  child- 
ish argument  that  begins  with  the  assumption  that 
the  bump  one  gets  is  an  evil  and  straightway  jumps 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  floor  is  to  blame  for  it. 

II 
In  the  study  of  the  human  body  our  scientific 
age  has  learned  that  suffering,  instead  of  being  an 
evil,  is  in  many  cases  the  best  thing  that  can  hap- 
pen. As  a  danger  signal  pain  has  no  equal.  It  is 
the  only  warning  that  you  can  always  depend  upon. 


Praying  to  Be  Healed  175 

It  will  stop  the  deaf.  It  will  stop  the  blind.  It 
will  stop  a  self-willed  child.  It  is  about  the  only 
thing  that  will  stop  a  self-willed  child.  If  one 
could  stick  one's  fingers  into  the  fire  without  pain 
most  of  the  race  would  bum  up  in  infancy.  More- 
over we  have  learned  that  suffering,  instead  of  be- 
ing a  law  of  death,  as  we  used  to  think,  is  a  law 
of  life.  We  have  learned  that  it  is  not  the  process 
of  dying  that  causes  pain,  but  the  process  of  living. 
All  physical  life  is  a  struggle  against  death,  and 
where  there  is  struggle  pain  is  inevitable.  That 
poor  fellow  who  suffered  so  much  the  other  night 
with  his  broken  leg  that  he  almost  despaired  of 
living  until  morning,  did  not  suffer  because  death 
was  getting  the  upper  hand,  but  because  life  was 
getting  the  upper  hand.  The  bone  had  begun  to 
knit. 

These  things  we  have  received  on  the  authority 
of  science  and  we  never  think  of  questioning  them. 
Science  tells  us  that  suffering  occupies  an  im- 
portant place  in  the  physical  life  and  we  believe 
it.  Science  tells  us  that  the  man  who  saves  his 
life — who  coddles  and  shields  himself — ^his  hands, 
his  feet,  his  muscles,  his  mind — from  wear  and 
tear  and  heat  and  cold  and  strain  and  endurance — 
from  every  effort  or  sacrifice  that  brings  pain — 
loses  what  little  life  he  has,  and  we  believe  it.  Sci- 
ence tells  us  that  It  is  the  man  who  is  willing  to 
lose  his  life  who  saves  it,  and  we  believe  it.  We 
have  no  difficulty  in  accepting  any  of  these  things 


/ 


176    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

so  long  as  they  relate  to  our  physical  life  and 
are  given  to  us  in  the  name  of  science.  And  yet 
when  we  Christians  are  asked  to  believe,  on  the 
authority  of  Jesus,  that  suffering  occupies  an 
equally  important  place  in  the  spiritual  world,  that 
he  that  saveth  his  physical  life  shall  lose  his  spiri- 
tual life  and  that  he  who  is  willing  to  lose  his  phys- 
ical life  shall  save  his  spiritual  life — when  we  are 
asked  to  believe  these  things  on  the  authority  of 
the  Master  Teacher  Himself,  although  they  are  in 
full  harmony  with  science  and  are  confirmed  by 
the  spiritual  experience  of  mankind  in  all  ages — 
we  petulantly  stop  our  ears  and  shake  our  heads 
like  unreasoning  children.  And  in  our  petulance 
we  speak  and  understand  and  think  as  unreasoning 
children.  We  insist  that  as  pain  makes  one  cross 
and  irritable,  and  unfits  one  for  either  work  or 
play  it  is  only  an  evil,  and  we  want  to  know  what 
God  could  have  been  thinking  about  when  He 
planned  things  so  that  floors  would  fly  up  and 
bump  people's  heads. 

No  wonder  the  world's  experience  in  praying  for 
the  sick  has  been  one  long-drawn-out  tragedy.  No 
wonder  it  has  caused  so  many  people  to  lose  their 
grip  on  their  religious  faith.  No  wonder  it  has  so 
often  driven  even  devout  souls  to  the  brink  of 
despair.  Imagine  what  would  happen  if  the  world 
should  suddenly  begin  to  speak  and  understand 
and  think  as  a  child  over  some  problem  of  our 
material  life.     Take  the  problem  of  surgery  foi: 


Praying  to  Be  Healed  177 

example.  Should  a  doctor  be  allowed  to  cut  peo- 
ple with  his  knife?  Suppose  we  should  suddenly 
begin  to  think  over  this  question  from  the  point 
of  view  of  a  little  child:  what  conclusion  would 
we  reach?  What  would  we  think  of  this  business 
of  cutting  into  people's  bodies?  What  would  we 
think  of  the  surgeon's  knife?  And — ^heavens! — 
what  would  we  think  of  the  surgeon? 

This  is  our  trouble  to-day.  We  think  of  our 
material  problems  as  men,  but  we  think  of  our 
spiritual  problems  as  little  children,  and  suffering  j 
is  a, spiritual  problem.  The  world  is  like  a  little 
child  lying  bound  upon  an  operating  table.  The 
child  has  a  weak  heart  and  must  undergo  an  opera- 
tion without  ether.  The  bandage  upon  his  eyes 
slips,  and  the  little  fellow  catches  a  glimpse  of  the 
surgeon  approaching  the  table  with  his  scalpel. 
The  world  to-day  goes  into  a  frenzy  at  the  sight 
of  suffering  and  cries  out  against  it  and  says  fool- 
ish things  about  it  and  prays  foolish  prayers 
about  it,  for  the  same  reason  that  the  child 
upon  the  operating  table  screams  out  at  the 
approach  of  the  surgeon  with  his  knife.  In  the 
realm  of  the  spirit  the  world  is  a  child,  and  it 
speaks  and  understands  and  thinks  about  suffering 
as  a  child. 

Ill 

Do  I  mean  to  say  that  all  of  our  praying  for 
deliverance  from  suffering  is  foolish?    No.    And 


178    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer^ 

for  the  simple  reason  that  ^11  suffering^  is  not  like 
a  surgeon's  knife.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  suffer- 
ing in  the  world  that  does  not  bring  good  to  the 
,  souls  of  men  and  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  pray  to  be  delivered  from  it.  There  is  no  rea- 
son why  we  should  not  seek  to  get  rid  of  all  need- 
less pain.  Nevertheless  it  is  unquestionable  that 
pain  is  playing  a  very  important  part  in  God's  pro- 
gram for  the  development  of  the  race  to  spiritual 
manhood,  and  we  should  no  more  seek  to  get  rid 
of  the  pain  that  is  doing  good  than  we  should  cry 
out  against  the  summer's  heat  or  the  winter's 
cold  or  the  fierce  March  winds,  or  the  endless  May 
rains,  or  the  woodman's  axe,  or  the  vinedresser's 
knife,  or  the  farmer's  plow  and  harrow  that  are 
doing  good.  Many  a  sickness  has  transformed  a 
spiritual  wilderness  into  a  rich  harvest  field.  Many 
a  pain  has  broken  up  the  hard  surface  of  a  heart 
that  has  ceased  to  respond  to  any  call  of  God. 
Many  a  sudden  misfortune  has  turned  a  poor 
miserable  failure  into  a  man.  Nobody  imagines 
that  in  such  cases  God  would  have  stopped  the 
pain  or  reversed  the  misfortune  in  answer  to 
prayer.  One  might  as  well  expect  Him  to  halt 
the  painful  processes  of  nature  that  are  necessary 
to  a  harvest  in  answer  to  prayer.  One  might  as 
well  expect  a  faithful  surgeon  to  throw  down  his 
knife  in  the  midst  of  an  operation  in  answer  to 
prayer.  If  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  is  developing  a 
man's  courage,  his  patience,  his  power  of  endur- 


Praying  to  Be  Healed  179 

ance,  his  willingness  to  suffer  for  God  or  fellow- 
man,  it  is  foolish  to  imagine  that  the  Father,  who 
loves  His  children  too  well  to  indulge  them,  will 
remove  the  thorn  in  answer  to  prayer  and  thus 
spoil  the  man  in  the  making.  There  is  but  one 
thing  a  faithful  earthly  father  will  do  for  his  suf- 
fering child  under  such  circumstances;  he  will  do 
what  he  can  to  make  the  pain  bearable  and  let  the 
thorn  stay  until  it  has  done  its  work.  And  that  we 
may  be  sure  is  the  only  thing  the  heavenly  Father 
will  do  under  such  circumstances.  That  was  all 
He  did  for  Paul — He  let  the  thorn  stay  and  gave 
him  enough  grace  to  make  the  pain  bearable;  and 
Paul,  let  us  remember,  was  as  good  a  child  and  as 
valuable  a  servant  as  the  heavenly  Father  ever  had, 
except  One. 

The  Father  will  not  remove  a  pain  that  is  help- 
ing His  child  on  toward  spiritual  manhood,  no 
matter  how  earnestly  he  may  pray  to  be  relieved 
from  it.  Only  an  indulgent  father  could  do  that, 
and  God  is  not  an  indulgent  father.  To  say  that 
He  would  make  all  of  our  sick  loved  ones  well  if 
we  would  only  pray  with  faith  Is  to  say  that  He 
would  imperil  the  souls  of  our  sick  loved  ones  if 
we  were  only  foolish  enough  to  believe  that  He 
would  do  it.  It  is  to  say  that  He  is  willing  to 
deprive  Himself  of  one  of  the  most  valuable  ma- 
terial means  He  has  ever  used  to  help  His  children 
achieve  their  destiny  as  sons  of  God.  It  Is  to  say 
that  He  is  willing,  in  order  to  gratify  His  children 


i8o    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

and  stop  them  from  crying,  to  suspend  His  pro- 
gram and  let  His  whole  plan  for  the  salvation  of 
the  race  fall  to  the  ground. 

For  say  what  we  will,  the  human  race  will  never 
be  saved  without  suffering.  It  will  not  be  saved  by 
suffering — only  Christ  can  save  it — but  it  must 
suffer.  Suffering  occupies  such  a  large  place  in 
God's  program  that  if  He  should  take  it  out  He 
would  have  to  make  a  new  program:  the  old  one 
would  fall  to  pieces.  If  He  should  abolish  suffer- 
ing He  would  have  to  abolish  the  law,  ''  Whatso- 
ever a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap'' — which 
would  mean  destruction  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  race.  Hundreds  of  millions  of  people,  finding 
that  they  could  indulge  in  sin  without  paying  the 
penalty  of  physical  pain,  would  plunge  headlong 
into  vice  and  go  to  the  dogs  before  the  year  was 
out.  And  this  is  not  all:  He  would  have  to  abol- 
ish everything  that  causes  pain,  however  essential 
it  might  be  to  the  development  of  the  race — all  the 
painful  exercises  and  struggles  and  sacrifices  which 
develop  the  physical,  mental  and  spiritual  powers 
of  man — thus  condemning  the  race  to  an  everlast- 
ing, puny,  spineless  babyhood  in  the  cradle  of  sheer 
animalism,  hopelessly  removed  from  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 

IV 

Unquestionably  suffering  is  essential  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  race.    And  unquestionably  God 


Praying  to  Be  Healed  181 

is  not  going  to  answer  every  prayer  for  its  re- 
moval, no  matter  how  earnestly  we  may  pray. 
Nevertheless  it  is  true  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
suffering  in  the  world  that  is  unnecessary  and 
harmful^'and  certainly  we  may  pray  for  the  re- 
moval of  that  which  is  unnecessary  and  harmful. 

If  I  have  been  sick  for  sometime  and  my  failure 
to  recover  is  due  to  my  own  carelessness,  it  is  clear 
that  my  sickness  is  harmful.  I  am  wasting  precious 
time  which  God  gave  me  for  my  work  and  I  am 
sinning  against  Him  every  day  I  neglect  to  use  the 
means  which  have  been  provided  for  my  recovery. 
Clearly  I  have  no  right  to  continue  sick  and  I 
should  at  once  beg  God  to  forgive  me  and  to  make 
me  well,  and  then  proceed  to  use  as  intelligently 
and  faithfully  as  possible  the  means  He  has  given 
me  for  my  recovery. 

If  I  have  a  pain  which  is  clearly  a  danger  signal, 
I  may  pray  to  God  to  remove  it,  but  not  before  I 
have  taken  advantage  of  the  warning  the  signal  has 
given  me.  If  I  have  been  indifferent  to  the  laws 
of  physical  health  (which  are  as  truly  God*s  laws 
as  the  laws  of  spiritual  health),  and  am  sick  in 
consequence,  it  is  useless  to  pray  to  God  to  make 
me  well  until  I  have  fallen  in  with  these  laws  to 
the  best  of  my  knowledge  and  ability,  and  assured 
Him  that  I  am  determined  to  obey  them  in  the 
future.  If  I  have  been  indifferent  to  His  moral 
laws  and  am  sick  in  body  or  mind  or  soul  in  con- 
sequence, I  must  follow  a  like  course,  or  my  prayers 


l82    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

will  be  in  vain.  If  I  am  not  going  to  profit  by; 
the  danger  signals  which  God  has  set  up  for  me 
along  the  road  of  life,  I  have  no  more  right  to 
expect  to  be  delivered  from  danger  than  I  would 
have  if  I  should  refuse  to  profit  by  the  danger 
signals  which  men  have  set  up  for  me  at  the  rail- 
road crossings. 

But  a  sickness  may  be  something  more  than  a 
warning.  Sometimes  it  is  an  opportunity.  And 
this  may  be  the  case  whether  it  was  brought  on  by 
wilful  disobedience  or  by  unconscious  disobedience. 
If  I  brought  on  my  sickness  by  wilful  disobedience 
it  is  an  opportunity  to  get  back  into  harmony  with 
God.  In  such  a  case  I  should  not  ask  God  to  make 
me  well  until  I  have  used  my  sickness  as  an  op- 
portunity to  get  back  into  harmony  with  Him.  It 
will  be  adding  insult  to  injury  to  ask  God  to  cure 
my  disease  before  I  have  asked  Him  to  forgive  the 
sin  that  brought  it  on.  My  first  step  is  to  get  back 
into  harmony  with  God  and  until  I  do  this  I  had 
better  stay  sick.  If  a  man  does  not  fall  in  with  God 
while  lying  flat  on  his  back,  he  is  not  likely  to  fall 
in  with  Him  when  he  gets  on  his  feet. 

On  the  other  hand  if  my  sickness  is  not  the  re- 
sult of  wilful  disobedience  I  may  pray  for  recov- 
ery, but  I  should  not  pray  for  a  quick  recovery 
unless  it  is  clear  (which  is  not  likely  to  be  the 
case)  that  it  is  more  important  for  me  to  get  well 
quickly  than  to  stay  sick  a  while.  If  in  my  sick- 
ness I  am  thinking  less  of  self  and  more  of  God 


Praying  to  Be  Healed  183 

and  my  fellow-men,  if  my  spiritual  vision  is  grow- 
ing clearer,  if  I  am  beginning  to  see  things  as  they 
are,  if  the  path  of  duty  is  growing  plainer  before 
m.e,  surely  I  can  afford  to  stay  sick  a  while.  If  my 
sickness  is  making  a  man  of  me  I  can  well  afford  to 
stay  sick  a  while.  The  truth  is,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  we  are  ever  going  to  develop  to  manhood 
nowadays  if  we  are  not  required  to  spend  a  little 
while  on  our  backs  occasionally.  Frankly  I  can- 
not see  how  we  are  going  to  develop  to  real  man- 
hood if  we  are  going  to  continue  to  spend  all  our 
days  in  a  maelstrom  of  blinding  matter,  as  most 
of  us  are  doing  just  now.  We  must  go  off  to  some 
quiet  spot  where  we  can  lie  flat  on  our  backs  and 
look  up  to  God.  And  if  we  will  not  go  of  our  own 
will,  something  must  come  along  and  take  us  by 
the  ear  and  lead  us  off.  I  can  think  of  nothing 
that  some  very  busy  men  I  know  need  more  than 
an  occasional  attack  of  sickness  that  will  put  them 
to  bed  and  keep  them  flat  on  their  backs  long 
enough  to  get  them  into  the  habit  of  looking  up. 

Surely  I  do  not  need  to  add  that  all  through  our 
suffering  we  must  use  prayer  not  merely  as  a 
means  of  getting  back  our  health,  but  also  and 
mainly  as  a  means  of  keeping  in  vital  contact  with 
the  Blessed  Healer  and  Comforter  Himself.  We 
must  pray  until  praying  becomes  as  natural  as 
breathing.  But  in  all  our  praying  we  must  re- 
member that  God  challenges  us  as  heroes,  not  as 
babies,  and  when  we  speak  to  Him  of  our  pain 


184    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

we  must  quit  ourselves  like  men.  I  may  ask  Him 
to  soothe  my  quivering  nerves,  but  I  may  not  ask 
Him  to  keep  the  temperature  at  seventy  degrees. 
I  may  ask  Him  to  quiet  my  aching  heart,  but  I  may 
not  ask  Him  to  indulge  my  v^eaknesses.  I  may 
ask  Him  to  lay  His  hand  on  my  wildly  throbbing 
brain  so  that  I  may  look  out  calmly  on  life,  but  I 
may  not  ask  Him  to  excuse  me  and  let  me  run 
away  from  life.  I  may  ask  Him  to  lay  His  hand 
on  my  care-worn  spirit  and  take  the  weariness  out 
of  it,  but  I  may  not  ask  Him  to  relieve  me  of  all 
duty  while  I  am  suffering,  so  that  I  may  not  get 
tired.  I  may  ask  Him  to  bring  light  to  my  mind 
in  the  midst  of  my  perplexities  and  to  help 
me  with  life's  mysteries,  but  I  may  not  ask 
Him  to  relieve  me  of  the  duty  of  thinking. 
I  may  tell  Him  of  my  nervousness  and  of 
the  flurry  and  worry  and  care  in  my  heart,  but 
I  must  tell  Him,  not  with  the  hope  that  He  will 
coddle  me  like  a  baby,  but  that  He  may  give  me 
what  I  really  need — the  peace  of  the  Son  of  God 
whose  spirit  was  never  ruffled  by  the  storms  that 
swept  over  His  life. 

And  we  must  pray  with  thanksgiving.  It  was  a 
little  thing  that  I  should  thank  Him  for  the  spring- 
time with  its  sunshine,  its  showers,  its  melodies  of 
birds,  its  beautiful  flowers:  now  I  must  do  better.' 
I  must  thank  Him — really  thank  Him — for  the 
winter  that  has  come  down  upon  me — the  winter 
with  its  storms,  its  cold  northeasters  and  its  leaden 


Praying  to  Be  Healed  185 

skies.  I  have  thanked  Him  for  health  and  for 
pleasant  times,  though  they  have  often  led  me  to 
forget  Him:  now  I  must  thank  Him  for  the  sick- 
ness and  the  hard  times  that  have  driven  me  to 
remember  Him.  And  v^hen  at  last  the  storm  is 
over  and  I  am  safe  in  the  midst  of  a  great  calm,  I 
must  thank  Him  for  the  peace  that  has  come  to  me 
at  last. 

And  that  is  not  all.  Every  day  w^hile  the  tem- 
pest blew  I  thought  I  should  be  vi^recked,  and  now 
that  it  is  all  over  I  can  see  that  all  the  while  the 
winds  and  the  waves  and  my  little  shaky  boat  and  I 
myself  were  all  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand.  And  so 
I  must  beg  Him  to  forgive  my  foolish  fears,  and  to 
so  fill  my  heart  with  His  strength  that  I  may  take 
up  the  thread  of  my  work-day  life  again  with  a 
firm  hand,  and  face  the  future  with  confidence  and- 
cheer. 


XV 

PRAYING  FOR  OTHERS 

I 
**  TT  KNOW  a  good  woman  who  prayed  steadily 
I     for  her  drunken  husband  for  twenty  years 
-*"  and  he  never  drew  a  sober  breath." 
"  And  I  know  a  good  man  who  had  a  vixen  for 
a  wife  and  he  almost  wore  his  knees  out  praying 
for  her  conversion  and  nothing  ever  came  of  it." 

"  And  I  know  a  saintly  mother  who  has  been 
praying  for  her  boy  ever  since  he  was  born.  She 
sits  up  every  night  until  two  or  three  o'clock  wait- 
ing for  him  to  come  home,  and  prays  all  through 
those  lonely  hours,  and  the  other  night  when  he 
came  reeling  home  drunk  and  found  her  on  her 
knees  asleep,  he  pulled  her  up  by  her  hair  and 
dragged  her  around  the  room.  I  just  can't  under- 
stand it." 

And  so  on  and  so  on.  Of  course  all  this  is  mere 
hearsay  evidence  and  most  of  it  is  sheer  drivel; 
nevertheless  one  must  admit  that  it  is  horribly 
depressing.  It  is  so  depressing  that  we  don't  care 
to  think  about  it.  And  we  don't  think  about  it: 
we  only  shake  our  heads  and  try  to  think  of  some- 
thing else. 

i86 


Praying  For  Others  187 

Here,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  secret  of  most  of 
our  perplexity,  confusion  and  despair  over  the 
problem  of  praying  for  others.  We  don't  think 
about  it.  We  think  of  prayers  for  others,  but  we 
don't  think  of  the  problem  of  praying  for  others. 
One  of  the  strangest  things  about  the  present  age 
is  its  hopeless  attitude  toward  spiritual  problems 
of  every  sort.  It  is  marvellously  expert  in  straight- 
ening out  material  and  intellectual  tangles,  but 
when  it  comes  upon  a  spiritual  tangle  it  immedi- 
ately assumes  that  it  is  hopeless  and  refuses  to 
take  a  second  look  at  it.  As  if  all  tangles  did  not 
look  hopeless  at  the  first  glance ! 

A  single  moment's  thought  over  any  one  of  the 
cases  I  have  just  mentioned  would  start  some  ques- 
tions, and  asking  questions  is  like  pulling  deftly 
and  gently  at  a  tangled  skein.  For  example,  it 
would  start  the  question  whether  our  informant 
might  not  have  assumed  too  much.  How  did  he 
know%  for  instance,  that  the  good  woman  who  had 
been  going  to  God  in  behalf  of  her  husband  had 
been  really  praying — that  is,  praying  in  the  spirit 
and  way  which  God  requires  of  His  supplicants? 
How  did  he  know  that  she  was  really  in  harmony 
with  God,  or  was  making  an  earnest  attempt  to  get 
into  harmony  with  God  ?  How  did  he  know  that 
she  was  not  trying  to  get  God  to  come  into  har- 
mony with  herself?  How  did  he  know  that  she 
prayed  with  a  forgiving  spirit,  without  which  one 
cannot  really  pray  at  all?     Do  we  not  happen  to 


l88    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

know  another  good  woman  who  seemed  to  be  pray- 
ing just  as  earnestly  for  her  husband,  and  who 
never  wearied  of  reminding  us  that  she  never  could 
and  never  would  forgive  the  liquor  seller  who  first 
led  her  husband  astray? 

And  how  did  our  informant  know  that  she  did 
all  that  she  could  to  help  answer  her  own  prayer; 
that  she  had  faithfully  cooperated  with  God  by 
using  all  the  means  He  had  given  her  to  bring 
about  the  reformation  of  her  husband?  I  have 
known  good  women  who  prayed  for  their  drinking 
husbands  at  night  and  regularly  drove  them  to 
drink  the  next  morning.  How  did  our  informant 
know  that  she  had  done  her  best  to  smooth  the  way 
toward  a  sober  life  for  her  husband?  And  how 
did  he  know  that  she  had  made  the  most  of  her 
love  and  her  beauty  to  draw  him  in  the  direction 
of  a  sober  life?  Love  and  beauty  have  drawn 
men  through  fire  and  flood  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth;  they  have  drawn  men  down  to  hell;  they 
have  drawn  men  up  to  heaven;  is  it  not  possible 
that  if  this  good  woman  had  used  the  love  and 
beauty  Heaven  had  given  her  in  helping  God  an- 
swer her  own  prayer,  she  might  have  drawn  her 
husband  away  from  drink  to  a  sober  life?  Is  it 
possible  that  she  dishonoured  God  by  neglecting 
these  charms  until  both  had  wasted  away  and  left 
her  nothing  with  which  to  draw  her  husband  up- 
ward ? 

And  how  did  our  informant  know  that  God 


Praying  For  Others  189 

could  have  answered  her  prayer  regardless  of  her 
husband's  will  in  the  matter  ?  How  did  he  know, 
that  God  could  treat  her  husband  like  a  tin  soldier 
and  pick  him  up  out  of  the  gutter  and  stand  him 
upright  and  force  him  to  stand  upright  for  the  rest 
of  his  life? 

II 

There  are  other  questions  one  might  ask,  but 
there  is  no  need  to  go  further.  Certainly  we  have 
gone  far  enough  to  reach  the  conclusion  that  the 
problem  of  praying  for  others,  however  serious  it 
may  be,  is  by  no  means  a  hopeless  tangle.  The 
truth  is  its  tangled  appearance  is  largely  due  to  a 
very  simple  matter.  It  is  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  we  have  overlooked  the  essential  difference 
between  the  problem  of  praying  for  others  and  the 
problem  of  praying  for  ourselves.  If  my  son  John 
asks  of  me  a  favour  for  himself,  there  are  certain 
things  I  must  consider;  but  if  he  asks  a  favour  for 
Robert,  there  are  certain  additional  things  I  must 
consider.  It  is  not  enough  to  take  a  look  at  John's 
mind  and  heart  and  life ;  I  must  also  take  a  look  at 
Robert's  mind  and  heart  and  life.  So  when  I  ask 
a  favour  of  the  Father  for  my  neighbour  I  have  no 
right  to  expect  Him  to  grant  it  simply  because  of 
what  He  sees  in  me ;  I  must  expect  Him  to  consider 
my  neighbour  also. 

It  is  this  strange  oversight  that  is  largely  respon- 
sible for  the  fact  that  our  experience  in  praying  k)r 


190    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer*? 

others  is  on  the  whole  so  much  more  unsatisfactory 
than  our  experience  in  praying  for  ourselves. 
Somehow  when  we  go  to  God  for  our  fellow-man 
it  seldom  occurs  to  us  that  it  may  be  just  as  neces- 
sary for  certain  conditions  to  be  fulfilled  in  them  as 
it  is  for  certain  conditions  to  be  fulfilled  in  us. 
Usually  we  ask  God  to  make  a  good  boy  of  John 
as  if  it  were  wholly  a  matter  between  God  and  our- 
selves and  John  had  no  "  say  "  or  part  in  it  at  all. 

But  John  does  have  a  say  or  part  in  the  matter, 
and  until  we  recognize  this  fact  our  experience  in 
praying  for  others  will  continue  to  be  as  it  is  to- 
day— one  of  the  dreariest  and  most  desolate  chap- 
ters in  our  spiritual  history.  God  answers  the 
prayers  of  men  for  others,  but  He  answers  them  as 
a  good,  wise  and  loving  father  answers  the  prayers 
of  his  children ;  and  a  good,  wise  and  loving  father 
cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  answer  John's 
prayer  for  Robert  without  considering  Robert  as 
well  as  John. 

And  when  the  Father  of  us  all  considers  those 
we  pray  for  as  well  as  ourselves  He  comes  upon 
some  very  serious  limitations  which  His  character 
or  nature  has  placed  about  Himself.  When  we  ask 
Him  to  reform  a  drinking  husband  or  to  convert  a 
worldly  wife  or  to  make  John  a  good  boy,  we  bring 
before  Him  the  inescapable  fact  that  He  made  us 
moral  beings  and  not  tin  soldiers,  and  that  having 
given  us  the  power  to  choose  between  good  and 
evil  He  cannot  run  roughshod  over  our  will  and 


Praying  For  Others  191 

force  us  to  choose  what  He  would  have  us  choose. 
No  matter  how  good  and  how  faithful  to  God  I 
may  be,  or  how  earnestly  I  may  pray  to  Him  to 
make  John  a  good  boy,  God  is  not  going  to  violate 
the  moral  nature  which  He  has  given  to  John.  He 
could  not  do  it  if  He  would.  God  cannot  be  un- 
true to  Himself  and  He  cannot  be  untrue  to  the 
creatures  He  has  made. 

Besides,  God  cannot  do  that  which  is  a  contra- 
diction in  terms.  He  cannot  recognize  a  law  and 
violate  it  in  the  same  breath.  He  cannot  give  man 
freedom  of  will  and  then  force  him  to  choose  ac- 
cording to  another  will.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  forced  choice,  just  as  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
forced  goodness.  If  God,  after  making  John  a 
moral  being — after  giving  him  power  to  choose 
between  right  and  wrong  and  making  him  respon- 
sible for  his  choice — should  interfere  in  answer  to 
my  prayer  and  force  John  to  be  good,  He  would 
take  the  responsibility  for  John's  conduct  upon  His 
own  shoulders  and  John  would  cease  to  be  a  moral 
being.  And  that  means,  of  course,  that  God 
would  not  make  John  good  at  all.  How  much 
goodness  is  there  In  forced  goodness  ?  How  could 
we  call  John  a  good  boy  if  he  behaved  himself  not 
from  choice  but  because  he  could  not  help  himself  ? 

Ill 

It  may  be  remarked  just  here  that  if  what  I  have 
said  is  true,  it  is  hardly  worth  while  for  us  to  pray 


192    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  1 

for  others  at  all.  But  this  does  not  follow.  It  is 
just  as  much  worth  while  to  pray  for  others  as  it 
is  to  pray  for  ourselves.  It  is  true  that  in  praying 
for  others  about  a  matter  in  which  their  moral  na- 
ture is  involved,  the  probability  of  an  answer  is  not 
so  great  as  in  praying  for  ourselves,  for  the  reason 
that  there  are  more  conditions  to  be  fulfilled;  but 
all  prayers  for  others  are  not  of  this  sort,  and  even 
if  they  were  it  would  still  be  worth  while  to  pray 
for  others.  If  a  mother  should  ask  God  to  spare 
the  life  of  her  sick  baby.  He  would  not  have  to 
consider  her  baby's  freedom  of  will,  for  the  reason 
that  it  has  not  yet  arrived  at  the  age  of  moral  re- 
sponsibility. But  even  in  that  case  God  could  not 
answer  her  prayer  without  regard  to  her  baby's 
welfare.  He  has  placed  Himself  under  obliga- 
tions to  do  that  which  is  best  for  her  baby's  eternal 
welfare,  and  no  amount  of  pleading  could  induce 
Him  to  ignore  that  obligation. 

Is  it  worth  while  then  to  pray  to  God  to  reform 
a  drinking  husband,  to  convert  a  worldly  wife,  to 
make  John  a  good  boy?  Yes,  if  we  pray  for  them 
as  moral  beings.  If  we  are  hoping  that  God  will 
take  the  drinking  husband  in  His  hands  and  make 
him  sober  and  upright  regardless  of  his  own  will, 
as  a  child  would  pick  up  a  prostrate  tin  soldier 
from  the  floor  and  set  him  upright  against  the  wall, 
our  prayers  will  not  be  worth  while.  If  we  are 
hoping  that  God  will  perform  a  miracle  to  make 
the  worldly  wife  sick  of  the  world  and  to  fill  her 


Praying  For  Others  193 

heart  with  a  passion  for  the  things  of  the  spirit 
regardless  of  her  will,  our  prayers  will  not  be 
worth  while.  If  we  are  hoping  that  God,  as  a  re- 
ward for  our  goodness  or  for  our  persistence  in 
prayer  or  for  anything  else,  will  make  John  a  good 
boy  regardless  of  whether  John  wants  to  be  a  good 
boy  or  not,  our  prayers  will  not  be  worth  while. 
But  if  our  prayers  mean  simply  that  we  want  God 
to  do  all  that  an  infinitely  good,  wise  and  loving 
father  can  do  for  a  wayward  child,  without  being 
untrue  to  himself,  or  to  the  child  or  to  his  other 
children,  they  will  be  just  as  much  worth  while  as 
any  prayer  that  we  can  pray  for  ourselves.  We 
have  no  right  to  expect  God  to  save  John  regard- 
less of  John's  own  will,  but  we  may  expect  Him  in 
answer  to  our  prayers  (if  we  pray  aright  and  co- 
operate with  Him  by  using  the  means  He  has  al- 
ready given  us  to  aid  in  the  work  of  saving  John) 
to  shed  more  light  into  John's  mind  and  to  sur- 
round him  with  gracious  influences  which  will  help 
to  smooth  the  way  for  him  if  he  should  choose  to 
forsake  the  wrong  for  the  right. 

And  so  far  as  we  can  see  this  is  as  far  as  God 
can  go  in  the  matter.  No  matter  how  earnestly  we 
may  pray  He  is  not  going  to  treat  John  as  a  tin 
soldier  and  make  him  stand  upright  whether  or  no. 
Why  should  He?  You  may  pick  up  a  tin  soldier 
and  stand  him  upright  and  he  may  stay  upright; 
but  what  would  such  uprightness  be  worth  ? 


XVI 
WHAT  PRAYER  DOES  FOR  US 

I 

IF  I  have  correctly  interpreted  the  Master's 
teaching  it  goes  without  saying  that  there  is 
one  question  about  prayer  which  can  never  be 
settled  by  testing,  and  that  is  the  question  of  profit. 
Whether  it  pays  to  pray  can  never  be  determined 
by  any  number  of  tests  for  the  simple  reason  that 
one  cannot  pray  for  pay.  When  the  thought  of 
profit  enters  at  the  door  the  spirit  of  prayer  flies 
out  at  the  window. 

When  one  is  moved  to  pray  for  pay  one  is 
moved  by  greed,  and  greed  is  a  deadly  enemy  of 
prayer — as  deadly  as  an  unforgiving  spirit.  It 
makes  no  difference  how  earnestly  we  may  be  en- 
gaged in  prayer,  the  moment  the  idea  of  gain  en- 
ters our  minds  our  praying  ends.  Our  hearts  can- 
not reach  out  for  God  and  gain  at  the  same  time. 

It  is  no  more  worth  while  for  a  man  to  attempt 
to  get  into  harmony  with  God  with  an  eye  to  get- 
ting what  he  wants,  than  it  is  for  a  disobedient 
child  to  attempt  to  get  into  harmony  with  his 
father  with  an  eye  to  getting  what  he  wants.  It  is 
less  worth  while,  for  even  disobedient  children  can 

194 


What  Prayer  Does  For  Us  195 

fool  some  fathers,  while  no  man  can  fool  God. 
Nevertheless  it  pays  to  pray.  We  cannot  prove  it 
because,  as  I  have  indicated,  it  is  an  impossible  ex- 
periment; but  we  know  it  all  the  same.  It  does 
not  pay  to  cultivate  the  Father's  friendship  from  a 
selfish  motive,  but  there  is  no  end  to  the  good  that 
may  come  to  us  if  we  cultivate  His  friendship 
without  a  thought  of  whether  any  good  will  come 
from  it  or  not. 

What  does  a  child  get  from  unselfishly  cultivat- 
ing his  father's  friendship  ? 

To  put  it  in  a  word,  he  gets  the  full  benefit  of 
having  a  father.  The  poorest  boy  I  know  is  a  boy 
who  never  has  anything  to  do  with  his  father.  An 
involuntary  orphan  is  pathetic,  but  his  case  is  not 
half  so  bad  as  that  of  a  boy  who  deliberately  makes 
himself  an  orphan.  True,  he  gets  something:  he 
still  gets  his  three  meals  a  day  and  something  to 
wear ;  but  no  homeless  orphan,  however  hungry  or 
ragged  he  may  be,  is  in  half  so  sad  a  plight  as  he. 
People  call  him  an  unnatural  boy,  and  no  wonder ; 
for  he  Is  utterly  out  of  harmony  with  nature.  And 
he  is  not  growing.  His  body  is  growing,  but  the 
boy  himself  is  a  poor,  unsightly,  stunted  creature 
with  little  prospect  of  ever  attaining  to  manhood. 
A  boy  who  never  goes  to  his  father  or  to  some  one 
who  takes  the  place  of  a  father,  may  still  get  his 
three  meals  a  day,  but  he  is  starving  to  death.  He 
is  cheating  himself  out  of  everything  his  father  can 
give  him  for  the  development  of  his  mind  and 


196    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

spirit,  his  character,  his  manhood — everything  that 
is  permanently  worth  while. 

Suppose  such  a  boy  should  suddenly  wake  up 
and  should  begin  to  go  to  his  father  as  a  true  son. 
What  would  happen?  First  of  all  he  would  fall 
in  with  his  father.  Gradually  he  would  get  closer 
to  him  in  body,  then  in  mind,  then  in  spirit.  He 
would  fall  in  with  his  father's  will.  He  would  fall 
in  with  his  father's  ways  of  thinking.  He  would 
fall  in  with  his  father's  ideals.  By  and  by  he  would 
come  into  such  complete  harmony  with  his  father 
that  every  part  of  his  being  would  be  in  vital  con- 
tact with  him,  and  the  best  riches  of  his  father's 
mind  and  spirit  would  be  open  to  him. 

Something  like  this  happens  to  the  child  of  God 
who  forms  the  habit  of  going  to  his  heavenly 
Father  to  unbosom  himself  to  Him. 

II 

We  usually  think  of  prayer  as  something  that 
has  to  do  mainly  with  one's  daily  bread.  But  a 
boy  rarely  finds  it  necessary  to  go  to  his  father  for 
his  daily  bread.  Usually  a  father  will  see  to  it  that 
his  children  are  provided  with  bread  whether  they 
ask  for  it  or  not.  The  worst  boy  in  the  family — 
the  boy  who  never  goes  to  his  father  for  anything 
— usually  gets  his  bread  along  with  the  rest  of  his 
children.  And  it  is  the  same  way  with  men.  God 
sends  His  sunshine  and  rain  upon  the  unjust  as  well 
as  upon  the  just,  and  usually  those  who  never  go  to 


What  Prayer  Does  For  Us  197 

Him  get  their  bread  along  with  the  rest.  Never- 
theless they  are  the  poorest  people  in  the  world. 
Sometimes  they  get  more  bread  than  the  best  of  the 
children,  but  they  are  poor  all  the  same,  just  as  the 
worst  boy  in  the  family,  who  sometimes  manages 
to  get  more  bread  than  the  rest  of  the  children,  is 
poor  all  the  same.  It  is  not  our  bread  problem 
that  makes  prayer  so  important.  A  child  of  God 
prays  for  his  daily  bread,  but  he  is  more  concerned 
about  the  bread  he  needs  for  his  spirit  than  the 
bread  he  needs  for  his  body.  He  knows  that  many 
people  who  never  go  to  God  for  anything  get  just 
as  much  bread  as  those  who  never  fail  to  go  to 
Him.  But  the  man  who  never  goes  to  God  never 
gets  anything  more.  He  may  get  all  that  he  needs 
for  his  material  life,  but  that  is  all.  Just  as  an 
earthly  father  cannot  do  anything  more  for  the  boy 
who  never  comes  to  him  than  supply  his  material 
wants,  so  God  cannot  do  anything  more  for  those 
who  do  not  come  to  Him  than  supply  their  material 
wants.  To  gtt  the  best  things  a  father  can  pro- 
vide—the things  a  boy  needs  most — one  must  go  to 
him  and  get  into  harmony  with  him  as  his  son; 
and  to  get  the  best  things  the  heavenly  Father  can 
provide — the  things  we  need  most  for  all  eternity 
— we  must  go  to  Him  and  get  into  harmony  with 
Him  as  His  children.  Animals  don't  need  to  pray 
and  if  we  want  nothing  but  what  animals  want — 
things  that  perish  with  their  using — we  may  not 
need  to  pray;  but  if  we  want  the  things  that  men — 


198    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer? 

sons  of  God — immortal  spirits — want,  we  shall 
have  to  pray.     It  is  the  only  way  to  get  them. 

But  it  is  a  sure  way.  Just  as  it  is  impossible  for 
a  loving  son  to  habitually  go  to  a  good  father  to 
unbosom  himself  to  him  without  receiving  from 
him  that  which  will  help  him  to  become  a  true  man 
like  his  father,  so  it  is  impossible  for  a  loving  child 
of  God  to  habitually  go  to  the  Father  to  unbosom 
himself  to  Him  without  receiving  from  Him  all 
that  he  needs  for  his  development  to  the  manhood 
of  a  son  of  God. 


XVII 
ONE  WORD  THAT  SETTLES  ALL 

I 

THERE  are  two  kinds  of  questions  which 
we  ask  about  prayer — the  questions  we 
ask  in  our  heads  and  the  questions  we  ask 
in  our  hearts.  To  all  our  head  questions — all  the 
questions  we  ask  from  the  viewpoint  of  science  or 
reason — there  is  one  answer  which,  when  clearly 
understood,  completely  satisfies  both  science  and 
reason.  That  answer  is  the  scientific  fact  which 
underlies  the  promise  of  Jesus,  "  If  ye  will  ask  any- 
thing in  my  name  I  will  do  it."  This  fact  is  that 
everything  in  creation,  including  man,  on  coming 
into  harmony  with  law,  comes  into  vital  communi- 
cation with  the  sources  of  supply.  All  the  objec- 
tions to  prayer  that  have  been  offered  by  material- 
istic scientists  vanish  before  this  simple  fact.  The 
materialistic  scientist  does  not  see  this — apparently 
because  he  shares  the  popular  misapprehension  of 
the  meaning  of  prayer.  He  thinks  of  prayer  as 
the  effort  of  men  who  are  out  of  harmony  with  law 
to  persuade  God  to  make  His  will  conform  to  their 
desires,  and  to  his  mind  this  is  absurd.  And  he  is 
right.  It  is  impossible  for  an  intelligent  mind, 
whether  it  is  a  scientific  mind  or  not,  to  conceive  of 

199 


200    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

God  as  bending  or  breaking  His  law  to  bring  it  into 
harmony  with  the  desires  or  whims  of  one  of  His 
creatures.  But,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  this  is  not 
prayer.  Prayer  is  not  the  effort  of  a  lawless  or 
self-willed  man  to  bend  God's  law  to  his  will. 
That  is  not  only  unscientific ;  it  is  absurd.  A  law- 
less man  cannot  pray.  The  thief  on  the  cross  was 
lawless  before  he  prayed,  but  not  when  he  prayed. 
He  did  not  begin  to  pray  until  he  had  repented — 
until  his  mind  and  heart  had  turned  away  from  his 
lawlessness.  Prayer  is  not  like  the  cry  of  a  plant 
that  has  been  uprooted  and  torn  away  from  har- 
mony with  law ;  it  is  like  the  effort  of  a  plant  trying 
to  bring  itself  more  perfectly  into  harmony  with 
law  by  pushing  its  roots  a  little  farther  down  into 
the  soil  and  opening  the  pores  of  its  leaves  wider 
in  accordance  with  the  demands  of  that  law. 

But  it  is  quite  possible  to  answer  all  of  one's  in- 
tellectual questions  about  prayer  and  at  the  same 
time  leave  one's  heart  questions  unsettled,  and  as 
everybody  knows  it  is  even  more  important  to  sat- 
isfy our  hearts  than  it  is  to  satisfy  our  intellects. 
Happily  Jesus  has  come  to  our  help  in  this  matter 
also.  In  a  single  word  He  has  given  us  the  answer 
to  every  question  that  the  human  heart  has  ever 
asked  about  prayer.     That  word  is — 

Father. 

There  may  be  exceptions  to  this  rule,  as  there  are 
to  most  rules,  but  I  have  never  found  one.  Recall 
one  by  one  all  the  anxious  questions  about  prayer 


One  Word  That  Settles  All  201 

that  ever  came  up  in  your  heart,  including  those 
you  never  dared  to  utter  aloud,  and  note  how  read- 
ily and  how  completely  and  satis fyingly  this  one 
word  answers  them  all.  What  reason  have  I  to 
believe  that  God  has  provided  a  way  to  communi- 
cate with  Him  ?  There  is  but  one  finally  satisfying 
answer  in  the  world  to  this  question,  and  that  an- 
swer is  Father,  If  I  had  no  assurance  that  God  is 
my  Father  nothing  could  satisfy  my  heart  on  that 
point.  If  God  is  not  my  Father  I  can  see  no  im- 
portant reason  why  He  should  have  provided  a 
way  for  me  to  get  into  touch  with  Him.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  He  is  my  Father,  I  can  conceive  of 
no  important  reason  why  He  should  not  have  pro- 
vided a  way  for  me  to  get  into  touch  with  Him. 
It  is  impossible  for  me  to  conceive  that  a  true 
father  would  deliberately  shut  up  his  child  in 
a  strange  room,  hermetically  seal  up  the  door  on 
both  sides  and  leave  him  to  himself  for  his  whole 
natural  life.  It  is  absurd  to  say  that  the  Omnipo- 
tent One  is  our  Father  and  with  our  next  breath 
insist  that  He  has  never  spoken  to  us  and  could  not 
provide  a  way  to  speak  to  us  if  He  could. 

II 

So  with  all  the  other  questions  which  our  hearts 
arc  asking  about  prayer.  Take  the  following  for 
example :  What  assurance  have  I  that  God  is  suffi- 
ciently interested  in  me  to  listen  to  my  prayer? 
There  is  one  answer  that  will  satisfy  my  heart  and 


202    What  Did  Jesus  Teach  About  Prayer  ? 

only  one.  He  is  my  Father.  How  do  I  know 
that  He  is  not  too  deeply  engrossed  in  the  great 
affairs  of  the  universe  to  look  after  my  little 
wants  ?  The  answer  is  the  same :  He  is  my  Father. 
What  father  is  too  busy  with  the  great  affairs  of 
this  life  to  look  after  the  wants  of  his  children? 
Can  we  depend  upon  God  to  do  for  us  all  that  infi- 
nite love  and  infinite  wisdom  may  prompt  Him  to 
do  ?  Yes,  He  is  our  Father.  Has  God  made  any 
arbitrary  rules  about  prayer?  No,  He  is  our 
Father.  What  father  worthy  of  the  name  would 
make  arbitrary  rules  to  govern  his  children  ?  Does 
God  place  Himself  at  our  disposal  to  do  just  as  we 
would  have  Him  do?  No;  He  is  our  Father. 
What  father  would  surrender  his  will  to  his  chil- 
dren? Can  we  gain  anything  by  telling  God  that 
we  will  be  good  if  He  will  do  thus  and  so?  No; 
He  is  our  Father.  What  father  would  make  such 
a  bargain  with  his  children?  Can  God  answer  our 
prayers  as  an  autocrat  answers  the  petitions  of  his 
subjects?  No;  He  is  our  Father.  How  can  a 
true  father  be  an  autocrat?  Why  does  God  give 
more  to  the  wicked  than  to  the  good?  God  does 
not  give  more  to  the  wicked  than  to  the  good.  He 
is  our  Father.  Does  a  father  do  more  for  his  dis- 
obedient children  than  for  those  who  obey  Him? 
But  why  does  God  give  to  the  wicked  at  all  ?  Why 
does  He  send  His  rain  and  sunshine  upon  the  un- 
just as  well  as  upon  the  just?  Because  He  is  our 
Father.    Does  a  father  arrange  things  so  that  onl^ 


One  Word  That  Settles  All  203 

those  of  his  children  who  obey  him  shall  share  the 
bread  which  he  provides  for  his  family  ?  It  is  not 
because  God  does  more  for  the  wicked  than  for  the 
good  that  the  wicked  so  often  have  more  than  the 
good;  it  is  because  the  wicked  selfishly  use  what 
He  gives  them  to  enrich  themselves,  while  the 
good  devote  themselves  and  what  He  gives  them  to 
His  interests  and  the  welfare  of  their  fellow-men. 

If  all  this  is  true — if  all  our  heart  questions 
about  prayer  are  answered  the  moment  we  think  of 
God  as  our  Father — it  would  seem  to  follow  that 
these  questions  at  bottom  are  not  questions  about 
prayer  at  all,  but  questions  about  God.  That  is  to 
say,  when  we  thus  express  our  doubts  about  prayer 
we  are  really  expressing  our  doubts  about  God. 
We  are  uncertain  about  our  prayers  because  we  are 
not  certain  about  Him  to  whom  we  pray. 

If  this  is  true  then  our  duty  is  plain.  When  we 
are  troubled  with  doubts  about  prayer  we  should 
not  be  content  to  go  only  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus: 
we  should  go  to  Jesus.  The  Master  has  given  to 
.  men  the  only  satisfying  view  of  prayer  because  He 
was  able  to  give  them  the  only  satisfying  view  of 
God.  It  is  not  sufficient,  therefore,  that  we  should 
learn  from  His  teachings  that  prayer  is  the  unbos- 
oming of  ourselves  to  our  heavenly  Father;  we 
must  go  to  Him  as  our  Saviour  and  Lord,  and  let 
Him  show  us  the  Father's  face. 

In  the  light  of  that  face  we  shall  be  satisfied. 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Date  Due 

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Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01025  1694 


